


In This World Of Ours

by dierdele



Category: Football RPF, Men's Football RPF
Genre: Eric Doesn't Understand, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Slow Burn, World Cup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-28
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-07-18 14:02:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 48,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16119977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dierdele/pseuds/dierdele
Summary: 'Sure, Dele had kissed Eric’s forehead when Eric was sick and Eric had impulsively kissed Dele’s neck during a goal celebration once, but that was standard for Eric and Dele. The almost-kiss from last night? That was something else entirely. That was potentially career-ending.'In which Eric tries to navigate a conflict of heart and mind and Dele keeps pushing.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For my Sinning girls.

Everything that could burn, burned. From the soles of his feet to the air in his lungs, every ligament, every bone, every muscle in Eric’s body was on fire.  
  
Eric had only been on the pitch for ten minutes but watching the game unfold from the bench had left him exhausted. By the time he was subbed on at 97 minutes, Eric already felt like he’d had the life knocked out of him. He knew the game was falling apart. Croatia were getting stronger and England were fraying at the seams. Players were falling out of position, crosses were coming in too wide, the ball was being lost too often.  
  
Now, as he paced the pitch and tried to force his team back into position, he could feel the fire in his lungs burning him inside out. Panic was setting in.  
  
_“We’ll score twice in the first half.”_ That’s what Dele had said over breakfast. He’d been all smiles as he sat opposite Eric at the breakfast table, shovelling porridge into his mouth as he spoke. They’d both been buzzing with excitement for the game, throwing down their predictions for how it would play out. _“Harry will score, but not first. I’ll score first.”_  
  
It isn’t the running, it isn’t the heat, it isn’t even the humidity that is suffocating him now. It’s the impending loss, the faces of crushed fans, the visible devastation of his teammates.    
  
“I think we’ll score before ten minutes, even.” Dele had said around a mouthful of porridge. And they had. Trippier had converted his free-kick into an absolute screamer of a goal, and in barely five minutes. Every fibre in Eric’s body had come alive at that point. It was as if his brain was soaked in euphoria.  
  
Now, Eric’s brain is failing him. He’s looking for Lingard, Rose, Rashford, anyone. His eyes can’t find Dele quick enough. He finds Trippier, who makes a play but loses it to a Croatian defence that seems to be getting stronger by the minute. All he can think about is the seconds ticking down.  
  
Just for a moment, Eric loses focus and he’s hit by the roar of the crowd, the boos and the cheers and the chants all combined into one deafening thunder.  
  
_“Modric will be a problem, but we’ll handle him. We’ll have two goals before half time.”_  
  
Eric’s eyes find the ball, find the Croatian feet that are dancing around it, teasing the England players who are stumbling now, panicking as the ball finds its way into their half. Pickford is shouting something, the crowd are screaming, and out of nowhere, like a dream, Mandzukic headers it into the back of the net. He makes it look easy.  
  
Eric wants to fall to his knees, wants to bury his face in his hands, wants to scream for days. Anything to stop the roar of the crowd. The Croatian fans are bellowing down the pitch and Eric can’t bear to look into the stands.  
  
In front of him, Dele is standing alone, frustration tearing at his composure. He leans down, hands on his knees, and almost buckles. He doesn’t see Eric.  
  
_"I’ve prayed for the team, for me and you. I know we will win.”_  
  
Vardy comes on, Harry misses a crucial opportunity to equalise, and Croatia are doing anything and everything to waste time. The seconds are ticking away and Eric feels himself losing patience with the players, feels himself leaning into challenges with a little too much force. All he can picture is Dele’s expression at breakfast, and then now, on the pitch beside him. There are years between the two faces.  
  
_“Diet, we got this. Trust me, tonight we’ll be celebrating.”_  
  
And then it happens; the whistle goes. Everyone comes to a stop. The crowd thunder in the stands, sending shockwaves down the pitch. Croatia are going to the final. England are going home.  
  
Eric doesn’t care about handshakes, doesn’t care about congratulating the opponent. He just cares about closing the thirty meter gap between him and Dele on the pitch.  
  
When he reaches his teammate, Dele is sitting on the floor, elbows resting against his knees, his head heavy between his legs. Eric crouches, reaches out and carefully puts his hand beneath Dele’s. There are no words, so he doesn’t try to muster any. He just stays like this for a second, waits for Dele to find the strength to look up at him. They lock eyes and Eric nods ever so slightly before lacing his fingers with Dele’s and pulling him to his feet.  
  
_We’re going to be alright_ , he wants to say, but he doesn’t. The look in Dele’s eyes has shattered Eric completely, to the point where it’s all he can do to hold them both up, walk them off the pitch in one piece.  
  
He doesn’t feel alright. Doesn’t know if he ever will again.  
  


\--

  
The coach back to the hotel is silent. It’s raining outside and all anyone seems interested in is watching the droplets pour down the windows. Mostly everyone is sitting alone, with a few exceptions. Jesse and Marcus are sitting together at the back of the bus, attempting to crack jokes and lift the mood, but nobody is buying into it. In front of them, Kyle and John are sitting together, watching Netflix on Kyle’s iPad and sharing headphones.  
  
Then there’s Eric and Dele. They’re sitting next to each other but Eric feels a million miles away. He can’t get through to Dele, doesn’t even want to try. And, really, he doesn’t know if he even has the strength to try anyway. Dele is staring at the rain, headphones in, mouth sealed shut.  
  
Eric can hardly believe this is the same man famous for his goofy grin and childish wave.  
  
The journey is short and the road is bumpy, but Dele falls asleep anyway. Eric has to nudge him to wake him once they arrive at the hotel, which Dele immediately looks pissed off about. Eric mumbles an apology but Dele just shrugs.  
  
They all get off the bus and Southgate says something about catching some sleep and freshening up. Harry is already scheduled for an interview, apparently, but Southgate says he’ll try push it back.  
  
Eric follows Dele up to the fifth floor. They stand silently in the elevator with Trippier, and with each _ding_ of a passing floor, Eric feels he should say something, congratulate Trippier on his incredible goal. But it doesn’t come. A few more _dings_ are they’re at floor five. Kieran gets off and disappears into the first door, delivering just a short, courteous nod. Eric shoots him a polite smile in response but Dele doesn’t even notice, just keeps walking.  
  
Eric’s room is next to Dele’s and his door is first. He prepares himself for Dele to simply continue on, not utter a word, but he doesn’t. He stops with Eric at Eric’s door, stares off down the corridor as he waits for Eric to let them in. Eric is slightly taken aback, but he opens the door anyway and lets them both inside.  
  
“Del,” Eric begins, but he doesn’t have anything to follow it with, and when Dele looks at him, Eric once again feels the wind being knocked out of him. He’s never seen someone look so broken. He swallows thickly, tries to think of the right words that will fix all of this.  
  
“It’s my fault,” Dele says matter-of-factly, his voice oddly composed. “I had chances.”  
  
“Del, don’t do this.”  
  
“I made stupid mistakes. I lost the ball, I missed chances, I fell out of position.” Dele is standing in the middle of Eric’s hotel room, arms hanging heavy by his sides. He bites his bottom lip and frowns. “I-” Dele’s voice cracks, and Eric moves across the room to him. “I should have done better.”  
  
Eric puts his hand to the back of Dele’s head, pulls him close, and lets the younger man sob into his neck for a few minutes.  
  
Dele doesn’t leave his room that night. They stay up for maybe an hour talking about the game, discussing the third third play-off and what they think will happen in the final. Dele sits cross-legged in an armchair while Eric sprawls out on the bed, listening intently to Dele’s every word, letting him air his frustrations. They talk about England’s failures, where they should have done better, and what they hadn’t seen coming from the Croatian opposition.  
  
At some point, once they’ve pulled apart every fibre of the game, Eric draws the curtains and dims the lighting to a soft glow. Dele yawns and stretches out in the armchair.    
  
“I feel like I could sleep for a hundred years,” he says, a sad smile playing on his lips. Eric nods in agreement and pulls his knees up to his chest.  
  
“I think I might do that.”  
  
“It’s warm in here,” Dele comments, then he pauses, starts picking at a piece of loose thread on his sweatpants. “Can I just stay?”  
  
“Sure, Delboy.” Eric smiles lazily.  
  
Without missing a beat, Dele stands up and throws himself down on the bed beside Eric. Eric switches off the lamp and turns to face outwards, giving Dele his own space in the bed. They lay like this for a few minutes, letting the air and the comfortable silence settle between them. Eric is almost asleep when he feels Dele edge towards to the middle of the bed.  
  
In the cover of darkness, Dele rests his forehead between Eric’s shoulder blades, quietly curls his fingers around the hem of Eric’s t-shirt, and tugs at it.  
  
Eric makes a noise low in his throat to signal that he’s still awake, but sleepy. Dele tugs again, and his fingers brush the skin on Eric’s lower back.  
  
Eric bites the inside of his cheek and turns over.  
  
Wordlessly, Eric stretches an arm under Dele’s neck, let’s the younger man nestle against his side. Dele keeps his head down and Eric is grateful for it. This might be the most intimate they’ve ever been with each other, and he’s not sure if this is okay, but he’s exhausted and Dele is still playing with his shirt so he guesses that just this once, on the night of their defeat, they’re allowed to take comfort in being close.


	2. Chapter 2

Eric is dreaming about the Croatia match when he’s rudely and unexpectedly awakened by a sharp knock on his hotel room door. He groans, attempting to clear the fog from his vision as he slowly drifts away from the pitch and back to reality.  
  
“Shit,” he mumbles, as he reaches his hand behind and finds a warm, sleeping body. “Dele, wake up.” Eric turns over and gives Dele’s shoulder a frantic shove. “Someone’s at the door!”  
  
Dele blinks awake and stares up at Eric, confusion clouding his expression.  
  
“You slept in my room,” Eric explains briefly. He jumps out of bed and pulls on a pair of navy sweatpants he’d discarded on the back of a chair. “Hide in the bathroom.”  
  
Dele doesn’t ask questions. He stumbles out of bed and into the bathroom, locking the door behind himself. Eric rubs his face. The clock on the wall tells him it’s 8:30am.  
  
“Yuright?” Jesse’s chirpy voice rings a little too loud when Eric opens the door to him. He’s beaming ear to ear and wearing his grey England tracksuit.  
  
“You always this happy to see me or did something happen?” Eric asks. Jesse shrugs, still smiling.  
  
“Everyone’s so mopey, so thought I’d spread some morning cheer. We’re going for breakfast, you coming?”  
  
“Who’s we?”  
  
“Me, beans, and Kyle so far. H is a maybe.”  
  
Eric isn’t usually one to turn down food, but he’s not exactly in the mood for a team breakfast considering they got knocked out of the World Cup barely twelve hours ago. Plus, Dele is hiding in his bathroom right now, so there’s that, too.  
  
“I’m not really hungry,” Eric says. They both know he’s lying.  
  
“Alright,” Jesse replies, nodding slowly and casually looking past Eric and into his room. Eric looks over his shoulder and then back at Jesse. He pulls the door a little tighter into himself, just in case.  
  
“We’ve got to meet downstairs at 1pm,” Jesse adds. Eric nods.  
  
“Sure.”  
  
Jesse moves a meter down the corridor to Dele’s room, still keeping his eyes on Eric. “Maybe Del will come for breakfast.” He knocks on Dele’s door and smiles brightly at Eric.  
  
“He won’t be awake yet,” Eric comments, shuffling on his feet. Jesse knocks again anyway. Nobody answers.  
  
“I guess he’s still sleeping. Alright, see you laters, Dier.” Jesse pats Eric’s arm enthusiastically and sets off further down the corridor. Eric closes the door behind himself and gently taps on the bathroom door.  
  
“It was just Jesse,” Eric says when Dele emerges looking sheepish.  
  
The two of them stand in silence, facing each other over threshold of the bathroom. Dele is still half asleep, his hair fluffy and wild. He rubs his eyes, takes a deep breath, and steps forward, closing the gap between them. Eric has no idea what is happening until Dele softly places his forehead on Eric’s shoulder.  
  
“Del?” Eric says gently, not daring to move.  
  
“Did we really lose yesterday?” Dele asks quietly. Eric doesn’t reply, just lets his hand find the small of Dele’s back. “I thought it was a dream.”  
  
“Come on, Delboy.” Eric pulls away, forcing Dele to look at him. “We gave it everything we had.”  
  
“I want to go back to sleep,” Dele mumbles. He refuses to make eye contact with Eric, his gaze falling to his feet instead.  
  
“You don’t want breakfast?”  
  
“I can’t face everyone. Not yet.”  
  
“I can bring you something?”  
  
Dele finally looks up, a soft smile on his lips. “You are good to me, aren’t you?” he says. Eric laughs and wraps an arm around Dele’s shoulders as they walk out of the bathroom.  
  
“Well I’m going to eat. I’m starving.” Eric rummages through his wardrobe to find a clean shirt. He assumes Dele will gather his things and probably go back into his own room next door.    
  
“Eric Dier, hungry? What a shocker,” Dele remarks, and Eric can practically hear the smirk in his voice. When he turns around, he’s slightly taken aback by the sight of Dele sinking back into his bed, pulling the duvet around himself.  
  
“I’ll bring you some food,” Eric says as he slips into his trainers. Dele mumbles a thank you but his voice is muffled by the duvet.  
  
Eric stands up straight, grabs his sweater, and takes one last look at Dele. There’s a strange lump in his throat that makes his voice go dry. “Sweet dreams, Delboy.”  
 

\--  
 

Eric finds Jesse and Marcus in the restaurant. They’re sitting at the back of the room by the large windows and Jesse is stealing food from Marcus’ plate, which Marcus only looks mildly irritated by.  
  
“Boys,” Eric greets warmly. He grabs the seat next to Jesse and reaches for the fruit in the middle of the table.  
  
Kyle and John join them at the table, pulling up chairs and squeezing themselves into the group. The atmosphere remains light, with conversation leaning more towards the strategy for the next game and less on yesterday’s defeat.  
  
It’s only once everyone has finished eating that Kyle frowns and looks around the table.  
  
“Where’s Del?” He asks, his gaze snapping to Eric. Eric wipes the corner of his mouth on a napkin and shrugs.  
  
“Sleeping.”  
  
“I knocked on his room,” Jesse says, biting into a peach with a little too much enthusiasm. Marcus hands him a napkin to wipe the juices from his face and hands.  
  
“He’ll mope for a while.” Kyle leans back in his chair and locks his hands behind his head. “He always does after a defeat. Probably won’t come out of his room until tomorrow.”  
  
“We’ve got training at one,” Marcus comments. “He has to come out of his room at some point.”  
  
Eric nods a brief hello at Harry, who pulls up a chair and sits at the table with a bowl of porridge.  
  
“Morning,” Harry greets. “How is everyone?”  
  
Just like that, the conversation slips back to the upcoming Belgium game. John and Kyle discuss defensive strategy and what they need to work on over the next three days while Marcus and Harry talk across the table about the Belgium weaknesses. Jesse is too busy laughing at something on his phone to take part in the conversation but every now and then he looks up and nods in agreement with whatever Marcus is saying.   
  
Eric looks around at his teammates. He was expecting a much more solemn breakfast, but this is nice. This is a team that can put a failure behind them to focus on the next success. He’s proud of each and every one of them.  
  
Eric stretches and stands up, smiling at his team. “I’m gonna go shower, I’ll see you guys later.”  
  
“Where you going with that?” John asks, nodding at the full plate of untouched breakfast food Eric is holding in his hands.  
  
“I’ll be hungry in an hour,” Eric laughs awkwardly, already moving away from the table. John frowns and rolls his eyes, clearly disbelieving.  
  
“Just say you’re taking food for Dele,” he says.  
  
“What? No, he’s sleeping,” Eric replies, but he doesn’t know why he’s bothering to lie. There clearly isn’t a single person at the table that believes him.  
  
“Make sure he comes to training,” Harry calls out as Eric disappears into the elevator.    
  
\--  
 

Dele is, of course, still fast asleep. He’s moved over to Eric’s side of the bed and is curled up in the foetal position.  
  
Eric places the food on the table, covers it with a napkin, and goes to stand quietly by the window.    
  
Russia is beautiful. The hotel they’re staying in is rather dated, but outside, nature blooms unapologetically. They’re staying in the countryside, a little reach from the city. Pine and Fir trees tower over the roads here and the wildlife seems content living in harmony with the locals. It’s idyllic, Eric thinks, as his gaze drifts over the top of trees and towards a church spire in the distance.  
  
He hadn’t expected any of this. To be here, in the England squad, playing in the World Cup in Russia. To reach the semi-finals. To be worth something, mean something, to this team of players that he would die for. He hadn’t expected to take that final penalty, and to score, securing England’s first ever World Cup penalty shootout win.  
  
He hadn’t expected this life, but he was so, so grateful that he had it.  
  
Eric turns to look at Dele, still sleeping. Another friendship, another bond that he hadn’t seen coming. Dele had come into his life like a whirlwind, swept him up, filled him with laughter and warmth and confidence. Dele just had this way of making Eric feel invincible sometimes. Like he would get through anything just to make sure he was there for Dele at the end of it.  
  
“Stop staring at me,” Dele mumbles, opening one eye to look at Eric from behind the duvet. Eric blushes and turns back to look out of the window for a second, regaining his composure.  
  
“Morning, Delboy.” Eric moves away from the window and picks up the plate from the table. “I got you some food. It’s probably cold now.” He lifts the napkin and frowns at the scrambled eggs. “I’m not sure if you can eat cold eggs. Although, people do, don’t they? Like in sandwiches. But I think they’re boiled. Not sure about scrambled eggs-”  
  
“Diet,” Dele interrupts. Eric looks back over at him. “Stop talking about eggs.”  
  
“Right,” Eric laughs, shaking his head. He puts the plate back on the table and walks over to the bed. Dele makes a grab for the duvet, clearly anticipating Eric’s next move.  
  
“I’m not getting up,” Dele warns. Eric sighs, looking at Dele with his best disapproving glare.  
  
Dele stares back, dark eyes scanning Eric’s face. Eric can’t quite read his expression and it unsettles him.  
  
“Get in,” Dele says, his voice much smaller now, almost fragile. Eric fixes him a bemused look. “Just for a few minutes.”  
  
“Why?” Eric asks, his voice hoarse. Dele doesn’t have an answer. He shrugs, looking deflated. Eric feels bad for questioning Dele’s moment of weakness. It’s not like they’ve never relaxed in bed together before, it’s just that Dele isn’t usually so serious about asking.  
  
Dele doesn’t look at Eric, just stares at the bedside table and starts idly picking at its corner.  
  
“Just for a minute,” Eric says. He moves to the other side of the bed, Dele’s side, and climbs beneath the duvet into the awaiting warmth.  
  
Dele immediately moves over to him, his eyes now lit up. He tucks himself neatly at Eric’s side and Eric can’t help but note how easily he fits there and how comfortable he looks. Dele is acting like this is normal, as if this what he does with all of his teammates. Eric wonders what they would all say if they could see him now, could see Dele nuzzling into Eric’s shoulder like this.  
  
“Let’s not face the real world yet,” Dele says happily. Eric wonders what world Dele is in right now.  
  
“Del-”  
  
“Let’s just stay here, all day. Fuck training.”  
  
“Del-”  
  
“I’m serious. What difference does one day make, anyway?”  
  
Eric’s already had enough; his heart is racing and he can’t think straight. He knows this is Dele’s coping mechanism but he hates it, hates when Dele disappears into a fantasy realm instead of just accepting the reality.  
  
He gets out of the bed and moves across the room, hand running through his hair as he tries to collect his thoughts. He can’t look back at Dele but he can feel the younger man’s gaze following him as he paces the room.  
  
He’s trying to make sense of all of this; lying to Jesse, hiding Dele in his bathroom, falling asleep holding on to each other. If the team knew, if Gareth knew, if _anyone_ knew how they’d fallen asleep last night, how close they’d been to kissing each other in the darkness, their careers would be over. God, they were stupid. What were they thinking?  
  
“Do you want me to leave?” Dele asks. Eric can hear him getting out of the bed. He moves over to the window, locks his gaze onto the church spire, and says the only thing he can think of that will buy him more time to think.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
Dele is gone within a few seconds.


	3. Chapter 3

Nobody wants to train. The burst of enthusiasm and renewed energy that had presented itself at breakfast has now faded away, leaving behind grey skies and a team that are once again miserable about the defeat.  
  
Rain drizzles all afternoon, so Gareth has everyone doing circuits in the gym instead of training out on the pitch. He does his best to move around the room and lift spirits, but nobody other than Harry is really giving him much in response.   
  
Dele stays at whichever circuit is furthest from Eric. Eric looks up at him now and again, but Dele’s eyes are locked to the floor, unwilling to spare a glance at anyone or anything that isn’t the coach or the weights he’s lifting. After fifteen minutes have passed, Eric stops trying to make eye contact and instead attempts to focus on his stretches.  
  
One of the coaches is telling him something about his stats, but his voice feels a million miles away. Eric nods, puts on an expression that he hopes looks like listening. Over the coach’s shoulder, he sees Dele filling up his water bottle.  
  
Eric can’t quite explain the falling sensation he gets in his stomach every time he feels Dele ignoring him, but he thinks it might be one of the worst things he’s ever felt. This whole situation is just stupid, and so _not_ them. Dele and Eric are inappropriate giggles before a match, they are late night FIFA games, they are food fights and games of truth or dare and silly team pranks. They are not _this,_ awkward glances and broken conversation and misplaced tension.    
  
“Eric!” Fingers snap in front of his face. “Earth to Eric Dier!”  
  
“Sorry,” Eric mutters. He shakes himself out of his spell and sets about listening to the coach.  
  


\--  
  
  
After training, Dele disappears into his room without a word to anybody.  
  
Eric eats with Kyle and John in the restaurant downstairs and actually enjoys their company. Usually, their silliness grinds on him after a while, but tonight they both seem much more calm and collected. For once, Kyle isn’t running wild and John isn’t doing Fortnite dances mid-conversation.  
  
They talk about Belgium’s play style, about Jan and Toby and Mousa. Kyle makes a comment about missing Spurs and John scoffs and hits him in the chest.  
  
“You think you’ll ever leave Spurs?” Kyle asks Eric. Eric shrugs and leans back in his chair.    
  
“Who knows. I like the club, but I miss Portugal.”  
  
“You gotta play for an English club, man,” John comments.  
  
“You wouldn’t leave Dele, though,” Kyle adds casually. Eric thinks about it for a moment, tries to imagine playing on a field without Dele by his side. He feels the familiar sinking sensation and has to push the image out of his mind.  
  
“No, probably wouldn’t. Someone needs to be around to help dig him out, you know.”  
  
“Yeah I know the feeling,” John says, smirking at Kyle.  
  
“You what?” Kyle laughs.  
  
“I’m always digging you out.”  
  
“You- shut up and finish your dinner, will you? Stop talking nonsense.” Kyle pouts. John kicks him under the table which sets off a minor play fight until eventually John remembers that they actually have company and composes himself.  
  
“Players move all the time, but you and Dele are solid at Spurs.”  
  
“He wouldn’t leave you,” Kyle says. Eric checks his phone under the table and opens the WhatsApp message Dele has just sent him.  
  
 _Sorry about today. Didn’t mean to make u feel weird.  
  
_ Eric feels the sinking sensation again.  
  
 **Where are you?  
  
** _In my room. Why??  
  
_ **Can we talk?  
  
** _Im playing fortnite with H  
  
_ **Did you tell him?  
  
** __Tell him what?  
  
Eric pauses, fingers hovering over the keyboard. He glances up and is relieved to see John and Kyle are back to play fighting and paying him no attention whatsoever.  
  
 **Tell him about last night,** Eric writes, but then immediately deletes it. **Tell him about me being a dick.** No, that isn’t right, either. Eric deletes the message when he sees Dele typing, but then Dele stops too. He stares at the ‘online’ status for a minute until it changes to ‘last seen at 3:14pm’.  
  
“It was a fucking foul, right?” John says loudly, gesturing at Eric for him to answer. Eric hasn’t got a clue what they’re talking about.  
  
“I’ve gotta go make a call,” Eric says, and he’s up and gone before either of them have a chance to respond.  
  


\--   
  


Eric doesn’t have to make a call. He just wants to be alone.   
  
He paces the corridor at the back of the hotel and finds himself in a quiet, empty lounge that looks out over the deserted gardens.  
  
For fifteen minutes he sinks into one of the worn sofas and watches the rain pelt the glass windows. He opens WhatsApp again and sees Dele is back online.  
  
He tries to remember if it had always been this way with Dele. They had always been close, there was no denying that, but this felt new. This felt like dangerous, unexplored territory.  
  
Under the protection of the darkness, Eric had almost kissed Dele in bed last night. They had been lying face to face, Dele playing with Eric’s t-shirt and occasionally looking up to see if Eric was still awake. Dele had shifted forward barely an inch, but it was enough. Eric hadn’t even thought about it, just went and softly pressed his lips to Dele’s forehead. Dele leant into it, clutching Eric’s t-shirt tighter. His breathing got a little heavier and Eric could have sworn his name escaped Dele’s lips in a tiny whisper. That’s when Eric had moved, tilted his head downwards to line his mouth up with Dele’s, but something stopped him; a light came on outside the hotel, probably triggered by one of the night staff. Dele had moved to see what it was and by the time he’d settled back into place, Eric had come to his senses and turned away, his heart racing.  
  
 _No_ , he thinks, _it hasn’t always been like this._ They’d certainly never kissed one another, that was for sure. The flirting, though, Eric couldn’t deny. They’d flirted from day one just because they found it funny and it made others who didn’t understand them uncomfortable. Dele liked to be physically affectionate - he was always draping himself over Eric in training, jumping on him after goals, falling asleep on his shoulder on the coach, that kind of thing. But it was harmless, it was just, it was _them_. Sure, Dele had kissed Eric’s forehead when Eric was sick and Eric had impulsively kissed Dele’s neck during a goal celebration once, but that was standard for Eric and Dele. The almost-kiss from last night? That was something else entirely. That was potentially career-ending.  
  
Eric had been the biggest fucking idiot in the world. Why had he let this get so out of control? Dele was always going to keep pushing it - because that’s the kind of person Dele is - but Eric should have been the sensible one. He shouldn’t have let Dele sleep in his bed and he certainly shouldn’t have found himself a second away from an actual, real life, intimate kiss.  
  
“Yuright?” A familiar voice rings. Eric jumps in his seat and snaps his head towards the door. Jesse is peering around, one hand still on the door handle, and is fixing him with a concerned look.  
  
“Yeah,” Eric responds, clearing his throat. “Hi.”  
  
“What you doing in here, man?”  
  
“Just trying to get some peace,” Eric says, his voice gravelly. “Thinking, you know.”  
  
“About the match?” Jesse moves across the room and throws himself down onto the sofa next to Eric, kicking his feet up onto the coffee table like he owns the place. They both get distracted by the rain on the windows for a few seconds.  
  
“Yeah,” Eric answers eventually.  
  
“No point dwelling on the past, Dier. We’ve got to look forward now.”  
  
“Wise man.”  
  
“I’m serious. Let the past go. Decide what you want your future to look like and go after it.”  
  
Eric shoots Jesse an incredulous look. “What have you been reading?”   
  
“Law of attraction, isn’t it? Marcus told me about it. Sure that’s how it works.”  
  
“You talk a lot of shit, Jesse,” Eric laughs. Jesse grins at him and punches him on the arm before his expression suddenly turns serious.  
  
“Everyone values you, you know that right?”  
  
“Thanks, Jesse.”  
  
“Come grab me if you wanna talk.” Jesse places a reassuring hand on Eric’s shoulder before standing up. He walks over to the windows and presses his forehead against the cold glass. “Shit weather here, innit?”  
  
“Hmm, yeah.”  
  
“You going to be spending the summer in Portugal?”  
  
“Hadn’t really thought about it.”  
  
“Sun, sea, sex - what’s there to think about?” Jesse smirks. Eric entertains him with a small laugh, but truth be told, he really hasn’t thought about it. He’s finding it difficult to accept that his time in Russia is almost over. His time with the team. His time with Dele.  
  
\--  
  
Eric does eventually make his way back to his room. He’s pretty exhausted from training so clocks off from social duties - which mostly consist of listening to Jesse, Marcus, and Trent once again argue over FIFA ratings - at 8pm and crashes on his bed. It still smells like Dele.  
  
With the lights out and the room bathed in darkness, Eric pulls out his phone. No new messages. He never responded to Dele’s last WhatsApp and when he opens the conversation, he sees Dele’s status is still ‘online’. He impulsively types out **I’m here** but then immediately deletes it and closes the app.  
  
Eric hasn’t seen Harry all night so he assumes he’s still next door playing Fortnite with Dele. If this were any average day, Eric would be in there with them, half watching and half scrolling idly through his phone. He imagines them now, on the other side of the wall, and wonders what they’ve been talking about. Wonders if Dele has told Harry what happened last night, what _almost_ happened.  
  
To distract himself, Eric watches an episode of _It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia_ on his laptop. He turns on the lights to a soft glow and opens the windows to let in some fresh air. He sprawls out across the bed, his laptop balanced on his raised knees. As the episode plays, he finds himself distracted by his phone, checking WhatsApp and Instagram and WhatsApp again. Dele is still online.  
  
There’s a sudden bang on the wall that makes Eric jump and almost drop his laptop on the floor. It’s followed by a burst of laughter — unmistakably Harry’s — and then Dele shouting something about unfair tactics. Eric sits upright and tries to make out what is being said next door.  
  
 _You one hundred percent fluked it!  
  
_ _You’re such a sore loser, Dele.  
  
_ _No I’m not, I just- show me how you did that!  
  
_ The voices quieten and Eric sits silently on his bed, staring at the wall that separates his room from Dele’s. He wants to be in there playing FIFA and winding up Dele about him being a sore loser. This is fucking stupid, he thinks, that he’s sitting here alone, sulking because his best friend isn’t speaking to him.  
  
Eric grabs his phone, opens WhatsApp, and taps out **need to talk to you.  
  
** Dele replies almost instantly. _Ok gimmie 5 mins.  
  
_ So Eric does. He patiently waits five minutes and breathes a sigh of relief when eventually he hears Harry leaving Dele’s room and walking away down the corridor.  
  
 _Ok im free  
  
_ Eric hasn’t even thought about what he wants to say, he’s just hoping it will come naturally once they’re in a room together. He paces his room one more time, checks himself out in the mirror quickly, and then leaves.  
  
“Hey,” Dele says as he opens the door before Eric has even knocked.  
  
“Hi,” Eric smiles. Dele smiles back meekly and lets him inside.  
  
Dele’s room is a mess. There are clothes strewn across every piece of furniture, Lucozade bottles lie empty on the floor, his suitcases are only half packed, and he’s brought more hair products than Eric has used in his entire life. It smells like deodorant and Dele’s aftershave.  
  
“You playing FIFA?” Eric asks, nodding towards the TV where the FIFA loading screen is playing silently. Eric mentally curses himself for asking such a stupid question.  
  
“Yeah, I lost,” Dele replies, sitting gingerly on the edge of his bed. Eric turns to face him, swallowing thickly before he opens his mouth to speak.  
  
“Are things weird now?”  
  
Dele looks down at his hands in his lap and shrugs.  
  
“I don’t see why they need to be,” Eric adds.  
  
“It’s not you,” Dele says as he looks up to meet Eric’s gaze, “I just- I know I get too clingy sometimes.”  
  
Eric half smiles. “Yeah,” he agrees softly.  
  
“We- we get too close, and then one of us gets scared and pushes the other away.” Dele rubs his face, presses his palms into his eyes.    
  
“What are you talking about?” Eric asks, his tone light because he doesn’t dare take what Dele is saying too seriously.  
  
“Eric,” Dele says, his voice deadly serious, “You know what I’m talking about.”  
  
“Del-”  
  
“We just- we gotta stop pushing it. _I’ve_ got to stop pushing it. I know that.”  
  
Eric bites his bottom lip and tries to make sense of the plethora of emotions that are making knots in his stomach.  
  
“And I will. I’ll stop asking to stay in your room, I’ll stop flirting with you in training, and I’ll stop acting like I’m your-” Dele cuts himself off and exhales slowly. “Like I’m something I’m not.”  
  
Eric can’t make sense of all this quick enough to think of a response. He can just see Dele chewing the inside of his mouth and remembers how close he’d been to kissing this man less than 24 hours ago.  
  
 _But I don’t mind you staying in my room,_ he thinks as he watches Dele stare at the floor, pulling his sleeves over his hands and balling them up for comfort. _I like it when you flirt with me in training_.  
  
 _And I want you to be that something that you’re not, but...  
  
_ “It just wouldn’t work,” Eric says, so quietly he’s not even sure if Dele hears him, but then Dele nods slowly, looking at Eric with the same broken expression he had on the pitch after the Croatia game. The expression he makes when he’s lost something important to him.  
  
“I know.”  
  
Eric doesn’t know what to do. He wants to pull Dele up off the bed and hug him, but he thinks that might make the situation worse. They’ve said it out loud now, __they’re too close.  
  
“Do you want me to leave?” Eric asks, and he hates this. He hates the symmetry. He hates this conversation. He doesn't want to leave but he knows he has to because Dele looks crushed and it’s Eric’s fucking fault and he doesn’t want to make him unhappy anymore.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
Eric is gone within a few seconds.


	4. Chapter 4

With one day to go until the third-place play off with Belgium, the team are told to pack the rest of their things and be ready to leave by 2pm. The coach will take them to the airport to catch a one-hour flight to St Petersburg, where tomorrow they will play their final match of the World Cup.  
  
At breakfast, spirits are high again. The whole team and the coaches fill the restaurant, tucking into scrambled eggs on toast and fresh orange juice. Gareth moves from table to table to check in with everyone, asking if they got enough sleep, if they’ve eaten enough, if they’ve called their families yet.  
  
Eric sits on a table with Harry, Kieran, Marcus, Jesse, and Danny Rose. Harry is showing everyone photos of Ivy on his phone, which triggers a conversation about when you should and shouldn’t bring your children to your football matches. Kieran is 100% for his family being there, but Harry begins to reel off a list of potential dangers, which has everyone rolling their eyes.  
  
Two tables across, Dele is sitting with John, Kyle, and Raheem. Eric glances over occasionally, pretending to just casually look around the room, and on the third glance he accidentally catches Dele’s gaze. The two both look away instantly, diverting their attention back to the people they’re sitting with.  
  
“It’s the climate you’ve got to think about,” Harry says, slowly stirring his porridge. Kieran shakes his head and stabs his fork into a piece of toast before cramming it into his mouth.  
  
“They can handle a bit of rain, H,” Kieran says around a mouthful of toast.  
  
“Can we please stop talking about the weather?” Marcus interrupts. Jesse shoots him a sideways glance, smirking.  
  
“But you love talking about the weather.”  
  
“Climate and weather are two different things, actually,” Harry says. The whole table groans and Marcus stands up.    
  
“I’m going to pack.”  
  
“Me too.” Jesse pushes his cereal bowl to the middle of the table and skips after Marcus.  
  
Kieran and Danny decide they want another round of egg on toast and make their way over to the food bar, leaving Harry and Eric alone. Eric glances back over at Dele, who is leaning across the table to show Kyle something on his phone.  
  
“How are you?” Harry asks.   
  
Eric immediately feels anxious. He can’t decide if Harry’s tone is imposing or not. “Fine,” he replies quickly. “Why do you ask?”   
  
“Because we have a game tomorrow?” Harry laughs and takes a drink of his almond milk. He places the glass back on the table and then carefully wipes his hands on a napkin.  
  
“Right, yeah.” Eric presses his mouth into a strained smile. “I think we’ll be okay.”  
  
“You seem distracted,” Harry comments. Eric shrugs and leans back in his chair. He watches Kieran and Danny at the food bar as they order.  
  
“Just ready to go home, I think.”  
  
“Summer in Portugal?”  
  
“I don’t know. Maybe.”  
  
“Dele said you’d go to Portugal.”  
  
Eric’s gaze immediately snaps back to Harry. “He did?”  
  
“Yeah, said you’re always talking about how much you miss it.”  
  
“I do miss it.” Eric looks over at Dele again, watches him joke around with Kyle, a carefree grin plastered to his face. “I miss it every day.”  
  
“You ever think about moving back?”  
  
“Maybe when I’ve retired,” Eric says, looking away from Dele and back to Harry. “You got summer plans?”  
  
“Well, my baby is due.”  
  
“Oh, yeah, of course. That will keep you busy.”  
  
“I can’t wait,” Harry grins, and Eric can’t help but envy him a little bit. Harry has everything: the beautiful wife, the loving family, the reputation. He’s England’s golden boy. There’s nothing not to like about the guy. “Anyway, I’m going to pack and then I’ve got to speak to Gareth about some interview, so I’ll see you later.” Harry stands to leave and Eric nods, shooting him a quick smile.  
  
Eric watches as Harry walks over to Dele’s table and puts his hand on Dele’s shoulder. Dele looks up and practically beams at Harry, who leans down and says something in Dele’s ear. Eric feels his whole body go tense as he watches the scene unfold. Dele laughs up at Harry and the two of them grin at each other.  
  
“Oh you’re one to talk!” Kyle exclaims loudly at John. Neither him or John seem to be paying any attention to Harry and Dele’s private conversation.  
  
Dele says something and Harry shakes his head. Then without any warning, Dele turns and looks at Eric, who quickly moves his gaze to the other side of the room. By the time he has the courage to look back, Harry is ruffling Dele’s hair and walking away.  
  
\--  
  


Eric is on the phone to his sister when there’s a knock at his hotel room door. With a slight panic, Eric looks at the clock and realises he was supposed to be in the lobby ten minutes ago. He begins to wrap up the conversation with his sister as he opens the door, expecting a scolding from Gareth, a coach, or Harry.   
  
“Hi,” Dele says, and he actually does the dorky smile and wave. Eric freezes on the spot, not entirely sure if this is real or all in his head. His sister’s voice rings down the phone and Eric quickly bids her a hurried goodbye before hanging up.  
  
“Hi,” he replies, looking confused. Dele gestures down the hall.  
  
“We have to go.”  
  
“Right,” Eric says, and he leaves the door open while he gathers up his belongings. “Sorry, I’ll be one minute.”  
  
“Always running late, Dier,” Dele teases dramatically. Eric turns to find Dele has followed him into the room. The light-hearted joke fills him with hope that maybe they’re okay, that they can just go back to normal again. Maybe Eric was overthinking the whole thing.  
  
“I lost track of time,” Eric says, shooting Dele a quick grin. Dele catches it and smiles back at him. _We’re okay,_ Eric thinks, _we’re good_.   
  
Eric gets the last of his things together and takes one last look at his hotel room, at the bed. With his suitcase in tow, they set off down the corridor, talking about the upcoming match.  
  
“You’re late,” Gareth says sternly when Dele and Eric arrive outside the hotel and hand over their suitcases. Everyone else is already on the coach waiting for them.  
  
“Sorry, boss,” Dele replies, giving Gareth his most innocent smile.  
  
They get on the coach and Dele pulls himself into the closest row of empty seats. Without thinking, Eric sits down next to him.  
  
“Knew it would be you two,” Harry says from the row behind. Dele crawls up into his seat to turn and face him.  
  
“Shut up, you. It was Eric who was late.”  
  
“Tweedledee and Tweedledum have arrived,” Kyle calls out to the entire coach. “We can set off to St Petersburg now!”  
  
Eric rolls his eyes as the team cheer dramatically. Gareth takes his seat at the front with the driver and the engine roars to life.  
  
The trip to the airport passes by quickly. Dele insists on showing Eric his favourite Vine compilations on YouTube to pass the time, otherwise they turn and speak to Harry about the Belgian match. Harry comments that he’s looking forward to seeing Jan, Mousa, and Toby again, to which Dele teases him for a good five minutes about his lack of loyalty.  
  
Kyle and John are sitting in the seats across so they join in too. Kyle is sitting by the window and has to lean across John every time he wants to be involved in the Spurs conversation. John eventually gets annoyed with having Kyle in his face all the time and demands that they swap places.

Before they know it, they’re at the airport. Eric feels like a huge weight has been lifted; him and Dele are back on speaking terms and it’s as if last night’s conversation never even happened. The team morale is high and everyone seems to be confident about meeting Belgium on the pitch again.   
  
They quickly pass through airport security and are being led to their private jet on the runway when Eric finally manages to catch up with Dele and Harry. They walk up the steps together and Eric is the first on the plane. He greets the cabin crew with a wide smile and takes the first set of empty seats. Dele hesitates for a moment at Eric’s row but then continues on, taking the seats behind instead. Harry sits next to him.  
  
Eric feels like he’s been hit in the chest with a brick. He stares ahead and tries to ignore the aching pain that has settled between his ribs. Maybe they’re not so good, after all. Maybe Dele hadn’t even wanted Eric to sit next to him on the coach and his unexpected warmth and humour was purely for the sake of keeping up appearances. The more Eric begins to reassess the day and Dele’s actions so far, the more he feels like he’s suffocating.  
  
The team begin to pour into the plane and Tripper sits down next to Eric. Thankfully, Trippier doesn’t talk too much, so beside some friendly chit-chat as the plane is taking off, Eric is left to his own devices. He can hear Dele and Harry giggling about something in the row behind but he doesn’t turn around to find out what. Instead, he puts in his headphones and blocks everything out for an hour.   
  
\--  
  
It doesn’t take long to get to St Petersburg and the hotel they are staying in is only a short drive from the airport. Eric sits alone on the coach and doesn’t even bother coming up with an answer when Kyle asks him why he looks so miserable.  
  
Because he _is_ miserable, he wants to say. Instead, he puts his headphones in and stares blankly out the window.  
  
Once they arrive at the hotel and gather in the reception, Gareth reminds them that this is the smaller of the hotels and as they are only here two nights, they will be sharing rooms. Eric had completely forgotten about this and it suddenly dawns on him that before the World Cup started, he and Dele had signed themselves up to share a room together.  
  
Eric looks around at his teammates and finds Dele looking back at him. Dele shoots him a small, awkward smile.  
  
“Get some food and then go to bed,” Gareth instructs, handing out room keys. “Don’t make it a late one.”  
  
Eric is given the key to room 155. He squeezes it in his hand as he slowly makes his way to Dele through the crowd.  
  
“Hey,” he greets. Dele gives him another polite smile but doesn’t say anything. “Shall we go drop this stuff off?”  
  
“Sure,” Dele says. He waves goodbye to Harry and Kieran and signals for Eric to lead the way.  
  
They don’t speak in the elevator and they don’t speak as they walk to the end of the first floor corridor. Room 155 is the last room.  
  
Inside, the room is extremely dated. Green velvet curtains hang heavy in front of a large window that overlooks the city. Two tall double beds take up most of the room, with two chest of drawers and one small seating area in the corner. There’s a TV fixed to the wall but it isn’t plugged into any power source.  
  
“Nice place,” Dele comments wryly, looking the room up and down as he throws his backpack on the bed closest to the window.  
  
Eric stands in one spot and watches Dele move around the room. He turns on a lamp, touches the curtains, runs a finger along the dusty chest of drawers, and pokes at the TV’s power button.  
  
“Dele,” Eric says quietly, his mouth dry and his chest aching. He drops his backpack on the floor and Dele turns to look at him. “Are things always going to be this awkward between us now?”  
  
Dele holds the eye contact for a few seconds and then looks back at the TV, which still isn’t doing anything. Eric can see Dele looking at him in the reflection.  
  
“I thought this was what you wanted,” Dele replies eventually. Eric moves a little closer but stops a meter short of where Dele is standing.  
  
“I don’t want any of this.”  
  
“I don’t know _what_ you want,” Dele says, throwing his hands in the air before letting them fall to his sides. “That’s the problem.”  
  
“Dele, I don’t even know what’s happening,” Eric says, exasperated. “One minute we’re best friends and then the next you’re cuddling up to me in bed and then you say we get too close and that we push each other away but- fuck. I thought everything was fine when you came to get me today but then the plane and… and this, the awkwardness. I just, I don’t know where we stand right now.”  
  
Dele moves towards the bed, a little closer to Eric, and nudges the base with his foot. They stand in silence, listening to the faint hum of crickets outside and the soft buzz of the lamp. Timidly, he looks up at Eric and asks, “Would you have kissed me? If that light hadn’t come on?”  
  
Eric’s stomach is doing somersaults and it’s making him feel nauseous. He thinks his heart might burst out of his rib cage if it beats any faster.  
  
“Yes,” he says, surprising himself. The word fills the entire room.  
  
A small smile breaks out across Dele’s mouth but he bites it down.   
  
“Good. I wanted you to.” Dele shrugs, tiling his head slightly as he looks at Eric with a soft, familiar expression. “So I guess that’s where we stand.”  
  
“We wanted to, but we couldn't,” Eric continues. He stands next to Dele, both of them leaning against the bed and facing the TV, watching each other’s reflection in the black screen.  
  
“So now I’m trying to stay from you. I thought- I thought we could go back to normal. I tried today to just go back to the way things were, but it’s fucking difficult, Dier. It’s difficult to be around you and act like everything is fine.”  
  
“That’s why you didn’t sit with me on the plane?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
Eric pauses, letting everything catch up with him. He sits down on the edge of the bed and Dele follows suit. They don’t say anything for a minute, just continue looking ahead, thinking.  
  
“So, this whole time?” Eric asks softly.  
  
“This whole time,” Dele responds, ducking his head. Eric finds Dele’s hand on the bed and can’t stop himself from covering it with his own.  
  
“I didn’t know.”  
  
“Really?” Dele looks disbelievingly at Eric. “Diet, I flirt with you on a daily basis.”  
  
“Yeah, but…”  
  
“But what?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Eric confesses, shaking his head and smiling. “I thought that was just... _us_.”  
  
“It is _us._ We flirt all the time. We just let it go too far.”  
  
“So we’re not…” Eric trails off.  
  
“Not what?”  
  
“It doesn’t mean anything? The flirting?”  
  
“I don’t know. Maybe.” Dele’s tone shifts and his hand twitches under Eric’s.  
  
“Maybe?”  
  
“I don’t want to say the wrong thing,” Dele confesses, his brow furrowing. Eric squeezes his hand just that little bit tighter.  
  
“You won’t say the wrong thing.”  
  
“All I know is I wanted you to kiss me in bed the other night. That if you had, I would have kissed you back.”  
  
Eric pauses, goes to say something but stops himself short. He exhales and then looks at Dele.  
  
“I think I would have kissed you, if that light hadn’t come on.” Eric shakes his head. “Del, you know If anyone ever found out-”  
  
“Our careers would be over,” Dele finishes. “I know.”  
  
“So it’s probably a good thing that that light came on.”  
  
“Yeah,” Dele says, curling his mouth into an unconvincing smile. It might be the saddest smile Eric has ever heard. “Probably.”  
  
“We should just… back away then? Not get too close.”  
  
“Not get too close,” Dele repeats quietly, as if making a mental note. He nods and slips his hand away from under Eric’s. Eric hadn’t realised he was still holding on to it. “We need to sleep. Big day tomorrow.” Dele says as he stands up, his voice unsteady.  
  
“You’re not going to eat?” Eric asks.  
  
“Not hungry.” Dele walks over to the second bed and turns out the light, bathing the room in darkness. “Goodnight, Eric.”  
  
“Goodnight, Dele.”  
  
Eric stays perfectly still on the end of his bed, listening to Dele silently undress in the dark before climbing into his bed and burying himself beneath the duvet.  
  
 _It doesn’t mean anything,_ Eric reminds himself,  _can't get too close._  
  
But he's already fallen.   


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the slight delay in getting this chapter out. It went through quite a few re-works before I was finally happy with it. I'd just like to say a huge thank you to everyone who has shown this fic some love, It really does mean a lot. Hopefully there's enough fluff in this chapter to make up for the angst of the previous ones. <3 
> 
> As always, a huge shout out to Becca for being my guide, my muse, and my proofreader.

Eric has a sleepless night. He’s too hot, too cold, too fidgety. He’s thinking about the Belgium match and the Croatian match and what on earth he’s going to do this summer. When he does fall asleep, he dreams about the Belgium match going to penalties, dreams that he’s the last one to step up. The crowd roar as _his_ penalty becomes the decider between a win and a loss. In his dream, he turns to look for Dele on the pitch, but Dele isn’t there. It throws him off and Eric stumbles right before he hits the ball. His pathetic attempt is easily saved by the keeper and the crowd boo him until he wakes up in a cold sweat, breathless and panting.

“What’s wrong?” Dele mumbles in the darkness, turning over to face Eric. Eric fumbles for his phone to find the time. The light almost blinds him but he just about makes out the 03:10 on the screen.

“Bad dream,” Eric says, shuffling back under the duvet and trying to steady his breathing. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Dele replies. His voice barely a whisper. “We’ll be okay.”

Eric stares at the ceiling through the darkness and tries to think about a summer in Portugal.

\--

“Delboy.” Eric shoves Dele’s shoulder, sighing. Dele groans and yanks the duvet above his head. “You have to get up.”

“Mmm, no, not playing. Leave me alone,” Dele barks back. He never was a morning person.

“Alright, I guess we’ll just have to win without you then.” Eric smiles to himself as he pulls open the heavy velvet curtains, letting sunlight stream into the room. He stands at the window and takes in his new surroundings; the unfamiliar buildings, the winding roads, the hustle and bustle of a city just beginning to wake up. He wants to savour these moments because he knows that a few days from now, he’ll be back in his apartment, staring at the same view of North London he’s been staring at for two years now.   

“You could never win without me,” Dele eventually grumbles as he relents and removes the duvet from over his face. “Fine. Whatever. I’ll help you win.”

“There’s the fighting spirit,” Eric laughs. Dele rubs his eyes and props himself up against the headrest, his elbows anchoring the duvet around his waist. He isn’t wearing a t-shirt and just for a moment, Eric’s eyes flit over Dele’s body. Dele catches him and Eric can feel a blush creeping up his neck as he looks away and busies himself with his suitcase. He doesn’t even know why he looked; he’s seen Dele topless a million times already.  

“I’m going to try out this weird shower,” Dele says brightly. He slips out of bed and walks across the room in his Gucci pyjama shorts. “We should get breakfast after. I’m so hungry.”

“Sure,” Eric says, looking between Dele and his suitcase, fiddling with some moisturiser bottles. “I’ll wait for you.” 

Dele shoots him a quick, genuine smile before disappearing into the bathroom. Eric remembers waking up in the night, remembers Dele’s words right before he fell back to sleep. _We’ll be okay_. And they will, Eric tells himself, just as long as they don’t get too close.

\--

Breakfast is upbeat if not a little rushed. Gareth wants to get a team talk in before they set off for the stadium but he also wants everyone to call their families and apparently there’s some interview crew here waiting to talk to them all about their World Cup experience so far. Nobody quite knows who is supposed to be doing the interviews and when it becomes apparent that Gareth is looking for volunteers, the team scarper off to their respective rooms, insisting they’ve got important phone calls to make. Dele is one of the lucky ones who gets away. Eric, not so much.

When he gets back to their room almost 45 minutes later, Dele is sitting cross-legged on his bed playing Fortnite on his portable PS4. Eric rolls his eyes at him as he walks over to the desk and grabs a bottle of water.  

“On match day, really?”

“It helps me stay calm,” Dele argues, throwing a pillow across the room at him. Eric catches it and throws it back with a little too much force. It hits Dele in the head and he dramatically falls backwards on to the bed, dropping his controller.

“Dier!” Dele shouts angrily, gesturing at the screen as he lifts himself back to a seated position. Someone has sniped him from 98m. Eric laughs out loud and crashes on to Dele’s bed next to him. “That’s your fault!”

“Sorry, Delboy.” Eric lounges out on the bed, his legs stretched out in front of him as Dele sits cross-legged and pouting. “You probably shouldn’t be playing anyway.”

“Why?”

“Because we need to go down soon. And because you’re shit.” Eric smirks and braces himself for the impact of another pillow.

Dele throws his controller down on the bed and shoves Eric’s shoulder. Eric grabs Dele’s arm instinctively and pulls him across. What starts as a playful scuffle ends with Dele straddling Eric’s waist, pinning him to the bed.

Eric stops laughing and Dele freezes, hesitant. The room falls silent around them.

Eric shuffles a little under the weight and unlocks his hands from Dele’s grasp. Dele sits upright and tentatively places the palm of his hand flat on Eric’s chest.

“We should go down. Match day.” Eric says, his voice a little choked. Dele nods and, having come to his senses, swiftly crawls off Eric, brushing himself down and checking his hair in the mirror. In his reflection, Eric can see Dele’s cheeks have flushed.

\--  

“Ready in five,” A FIFA official calls out to the two teams who are lined up side by side in the tunnel. The noise of the crowd has broken through and Eric is itching to get on the pitch.

He turns around and sees Jan a few feet behind him on the opposing side. They exchange a quick smile and Eric can’t resist the urge to wink at him, which Jan grins at.

Gareth is pacing up and down, reeling off some last minute advice to Harry, who stands at the front of the line looking a little sheepish. Eric watches them for a while before turning back to his team. He catches Dele’s eye at the back of the room and Dele smiles softly at him. Eric holds the smile for just a second before forcing himself to look away.

Dele hasn’t been called up to the starting eleven but they’d all more or less seen it coming. Dele’s hamstring is still playing up and Gareth doesn’t want to agitate it any more than necessary. It makes complete sense, of course, but Eric can’t help but feel a little bit gutted that he won’t be playing his final World Cup match alongside his best friend.

He keeps thinking about the dream, too. Eric talking the final penalty and looking for Dele, only to realise Dele has already gone. The dream has haunted him all day, niggling at him whenever he sees Dele disappear around a corner or slip through a door. It’s not the missed penalty or the booing of the crowd that has his stomach lurching, it’s the idea that Dele is just _gone_. Eric doesn’t know where he is, doesn’t know if he’s safe, if he’ll ever see him again. It’s a ridiculous notion because Eric knows that of course he’s going to see Dele again, but it’s got him thinking about the future, about possible transfers and inevitable goodbyes.

“Ready in two.”

And then there was the moment in the hotel. The second _almost-kiss_. How Eric’s heart had thumped painfully in his chest and his breath hitched in his throat. Dele had stared down at him with wide, hopeful eyes, and if he’d just leaned forward— _no_. Eric wasn’t going to let himself think about this. Not now.

Gareth and the subs are led out the tunnel to the dugout and Eric suddenly feels very, very alone. He wants his best friend on the pitch with him, wants to finish this tournament with Dele by his side, one last victory under their belt.

“Ready in one.”

But now Dele is gone and this is their final match and win or lose, tomorrow they fly home. Eric and Dele will be forced to go their separate ways. Another long, torturous summer of wanting to text Dele every minute of every day, but never having the courage to hit send because he doesn’t want to be _that_ friend.  

“Ready. Let’s go.”

Eric starts walking, eyes fixed firmly ahead on the pitch.

\--

Dele comes on in the 84th minute, right after Eden Hazard’s screamer of a goal. It’s game over by this point, but Dele runs on with an expression of pure determination.

Eric is exhausted, aching, and bruised, but seeing Dele run onto the pitch gives hims a new lease of life. He starts shouting at his teammates again to get into position and watch their marking.  

It’s a brutal nine minutes of gameplay that gets them absolutely nowhere, despite everyone’s best efforts. Eric is actually relieved when the final whistle blows. Teammates come up and pat him on the back and Belgian players come over to shake his hand – Jan says something about Eric playing well when they hug – but Eric isn’t really paying attention. He’s already looking across the field for Dele. The sinking sensation once again floors him as he just catches Dele walking off the pitch with Harry, Harry’s arms slung around Dele’s shoulders.

“Let’s go, mate.” Stones appears beside Eric and the two of them walk to the tunnel together, too tired, too disappointed for small talk.

Gareth gives them all some pre-penned speech in the dressing room about an incredible, respectable performance throughout the World Cup. He tells them all that he’s proud of them, that their country is proud of them, and that they should be proud of themselves. Everyone agrees for the sake of getting through the day, but they all know this isn’t the way they wanted to leave the tournament.

\--

On the coach back to the hotel, Eric sits with Dele and they listen to Drake together on Dele’s headphones. The coach is mostly quiet except for Kyle and John’s bickering over which show to watch on Kyle’s iPad.

“This one?” Dele asks quietly, tilting his head towards Eric but keeping his eyes on his phone as he flicks through Drake’s songs. Eric shrugs, says he doesn’t mind. Dele rolls his eyes. “What do you want to listen to, then? And don’t say Bryson Tiller because we had him on last time.”

“What was that YouTube mixtape you always used to make me listen to? I liked that.”

“You said you hated those mixtapes.”

“What? No I didn’t.”

“You said I overplayed them.”

“You did overplay them, but I remember one of them being quite good. Give me your phone.”

Eric takes Dele’s phone out of his hands and opens the YouTube app. Dele leans over him, watching. The app opens and the first suggested video is _Six Questions with Eric Dier | British GQ._ Eric gives Dele a questioning glance.

“You been watching my interviews again, Delboy?” He smirks, his tone dripping in superiority. Dele attempts to cover up his embarrassment and divert attention by opening the video. The first clip is Eric kicking a ball at an empty goal and completely missing it. _Touché_ , Eric thinks.

“Nice. A classic Dier shot.” Dele comments, attempting to hold a straight face but failing miserably when Eric digs him in the ribs.

The first question comes up on the screen: _Dele Alli told us you didn’t like him at first?_

Eric rolls his eyes and turns to frown at Dele.

“Still don’t know why you tell everyone this,” he mumbles moodily. Dele grins.

“Because it’s true. Anyway, I love how your first question is about me.”

“ _He was a bit shy to begin with_ ,” Eric quotes, laughing along at himself on the video talking about Dele. “You were a bit shy weren’t you?”

“No, I wasn’t shy. Shut up and listen to the video.” Dele shuffles closer to Eric, his chin resting on Eric’s shoulder.

The next question comes up on the screen: _How did he charm you?_

Eric shakes his head slightly, annoyed at how this is making him look. Next to him, perched on his shoulder, Dele is grinning like a schoolboy because video-Eric is all smiles as he insists that _Dele can be charming when he wants to be._ Eric can’t help but smile at the memory. He wasn’t lying.

“The next question is about me, too.” Dele says before the question has even come up. Eric briefly wonders how many times Dele has seen this video. “Your impression of me sucks.”

It turns out every single question is about Dele. At one point, video-Eric brings out the GQ magazine to flick through Dele’s photos. _This one’s alright, I like that one,_ video-Eric says, pointing at a photo of Dele in a burgundy jumper.

“I kept that jumper,” Dele comments idly, his eyes still transfixed on the video. Eric knows he kept the jumper because he wears it almost every time he comes over. “You do realise this whole interview is about me, right?”

“Well, I didn’t pick the questions,” Eric says, only half-defensively. He closes the interview and pretends he doesn’t see the string of recommend videos that are _all_ of Eric. He hits the search bar at the top and feels Dele tense up next to him when the last searched item is _Eric Dier,_ followed by _Eric Dier and Dele._

“Give me my phone,” Dele stammers, finally snatching his phone back from Eric’s grasp. It’s only then that Eric notices Dele has gone a deep shade of red. “We’re listening to Drake.”

Eric sits back and doesn’t say anything. He lets Dele pick the music and doesn’t complain once, even when the same Drake song plays three times in a row. All he can think about is Dele searching for videos of Eric on YouTube and how stupidly cute and stupidly _Dele_ that is. It makes Eric feel warm and blissfully content, as if they haven’t just lost another World Cup match. As if they aren’t going home tomorrow.

\--

“Let’s go sit in the gardens, yeah?” Jesse calls out down the coach when they pull up at the hotel. The sun is still beating down on St Petersburg and it’s their last full day in Russia, so most of the team happily agree to an hour lying in the sun.

As much as Eric wants to spend time with the boys, he also just really wants to sleep. It’s hot and stuffy and Eric feels like he needs time to lie on his bed and just _think_. So he politely ducks out, says he’ll come and meet them if they’re still out after his nap.

The team mill around the hotel lobby while Gareth offers to go and speak to the chefs about making them all pizza. Eric is sitting in an armchair - with Jesse perched on the arm talking excitedly about his new merch collection to no one in particular - when Gareth comes back in and says pizza will be ready in 20 minutes.

“I’ll catch up with you later then,” Eric says to the group, eliciting a few acknowledging smiles in response. He starts walking towards the elevators when he hears Dele skipping after him.

“Hold on, I’m coming with you. I want to get Uno.”

In the elevator, Dele knocks his elbow into Eric’s and smiles straight ahead. “You know you played well today, right?”

“Hm?” Eric looks at Dele and issues him an unconvinced laugh. “Del, we lost.”

“Yeah, but you played well. You had two attempts and both were on target.”

Eric doesn’t really know what to say. The obvious thing would be _yeah, but they didn’t go in_ , but he doesn’t want to being unnecessarily negative. It’s all over now and there’s nothing they can do about it. So he just smiles instead, grateful for Dele’s compliments.

They walk down the hallway to their room and chat about how weird it’s going to feel to leave Russia and not see each other all summer. It gives Eric that horrible sinking sensation just thinking about it.

In the room, Dele rummages around his suitcase looking for his pack of Uno cards. Eric dims the lighting, pulls the curtains closed, and sits down on the end of his bed to take off his shoes. There’s a sadness that has settled in his chest from thinking about leaving Dele again.

“You want me to come wake you up in an hour or something?” Dele asks.

He’s standing at the end of Eric’s bed holding his pack of Uno cards, wearing a plain white t-shirt and his grey England tracksuit bottoms. There’s nothing significant about his question, nothing noteworthy about the way he’s standing or the way he’s looking at Eric, but suddenly Eric is lost for words, can barely remember how to breathe. Dele is painstakingly beautiful, and in all the ways Eric had been trying to ignore. Not only is he extremely attractive, but he’s also kind, and he’s gentle, and he’s silly and fun and he makes Eric feel like they could conquer the world together.

Because Dele likes Uno and he looks up videos of Eric and he persistently wears the burgundy jumper that Eric said he liked one time.

“...Eric?”

“I should have kissed you.”

Dele opens his mouth to say something. For a second, his lips move but nothing comes out. He looks at his pack of Uno cards, clearly stunned, and then looks back at Eric.

“I can’t stop thinking about it, Del.” Eric shakes his head, lets his hands fall into his lap. “I can’t stop thinking about what would have happened if that light hadn’t come on.”

“I can’t stop thinking about it either,” Dele answers quietly. He looks around the room, chews the inside of his mouth like he’s internally debating his next move. After a moment of silence, he looks back at Eric and tilts his head slightly. “You ever think we should just... do it? Just so we can stop thinking about it?”

Eric swallows thickly. His heart is racing and he knows, he _knows_ he shouldn’t, but god, he really wants to.

He lets the word escape him before he can stop it. “Yes.”

Eric stands up and Dele closes the gap between them, ducking his head so that his forehead is resting on Eric’s shoulder. Eric gently places his hand on Dele’s lower back. He blocks out the incoherent rambling of his brain — the warnings, the protests, the feeling that he might throw up if Dele doesn’t kiss him _right now_.

“Just once,” Dele mumbles into Eric’s shirt. Eric nods and pulls away slightly. He shuts down the internal protests and lets himself listen to the sound of his pounding heart.

Dele’s mouth finds Eric’s and Eric feels like he might collapse. It’s a soft, gentle kiss that lasts all of about two seconds. Dele ever so slightly pulls away and exhales, but Eric can’t stop himself from leaning in again, capturing another kiss which takes Dele slightly by surprise.

“Eric,” Dele whispers. Eric feels it on his mouth, feels it coursing through his bloodstream. _Just one more_.

They kiss again, but this time Dele folds himself into Eric, presses his body flush against Eric’s chest. His hands find the sides of Eric’s face and hold him, caressing the skin where his neck joins his jaw line. It’s gentle and caring and Eric wants more but he knows this is as much as he can ever allow himself to have. This is already _so much more_ than he ever thought he would have.

He gradually pulls away, even though Dele is desperately reaching for more. Dele senses his hesitation and stops, closing his eyes and letting his head fall back onto Eric’s shoulders.

Eric holds him for a few minutes, let’s Dele go limp against him.

“We can stop thinking about it now,” Eric says, placing a kiss to Dele’s temple. Even just saying it feels stupid. How are they _ever_ going to stop thinking about it? Dele tightens his grip around Eric’s waist.    

“Yeah. Yeah, okay.” Dele’s voice is trembling. He pulls away, folds his arms and then lets them fall to his sides. He looks like he has no idea what to do next. “This will help, right?”

“Yeah,” Eric says. He doesn’t believe it.

“This will help us forget about it?”

“I think so.”

Dele nods, agreeing. He doesn’t believe it either. Eric tries to smile reassuringly, but the one meter distance between him and Dele feels like the length of a football pitch, feels like another summer spent apart.

“This is our last night, Dier,” Dele says sadly. “Can we just… maybe have one night? I don’t mean like _that_ \- just. I don’t know. I just…”

“Don’t want this to end,” Eric finishes. Dele nods.

“I’m going to go and sit with the guys for a bit, but when I come back, can I kiss you again?” Dele’s voice catches and Eric can sense how nervous he is.

“Yeah.” It’s barely a whisper, but Dele hears it anyway. His face lights up and he has to look away from Eric to stop himself from showing too much emotion.

“I won’t be long,” Dele replies. He grabs his Uno cards and heads towards the door, turning to look at Eric one last time as he reaches for the door handle. “It’s okay if you change your mind. It will be good to take an hour to think about it first.”

“Okay,” Eric responds. “Same goes to you."

Dele bites his lip, looks like he wants to say something but then doesn’t. He smiles softly at Eric before letting himself out.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter begins exactly where the last chapter left off, and all takes place in the same period of time. Thank you so much to everyone still reading this fic! <3

Eric stands by the window and watches the traffic flow through the city. He stands there for a while, just watching, letting his fingers drum idly on the window sill. 

The traffic moves in streams of red, yellow, and white lights. Eric wonders who these people are, where they’re coming from, and who they might be going home to. He wonders what his life would be like if he’d been born in Russia instead of England. What job would he do? What type of people would he be friends with? He would most likely do something solitary, something outdoors. He’d live in a cabin in the middle of nowhere with just his dogs and the fir trees for company. Nobody would bother him. Nobody would want interviews or signed shirts. Nobody would care that he’d kissed his best friend. 

If he lived alone, Eric wouldn’t have to do press conferences, wouldn’t have the pressure of being a famous footballer, wouldn’t have to deal with the guilt of letting his whole country down. 

But he wouldn’t have Dele, either. So he prefers the life he has. 

The cabin and the fir trees and the dogs suddenly disappear and Eric is back in his hotel room, standing by the window, watching traffic. Something has roused him from his daydream. Then he hears it again, the soft knock at his door.  

_ Dele. _

No, not Dele. It’s Jesse. He’s standing at the door grinning when Eric opens it. Eric tries not to let the disappointment show on his face.

“Oh, hi Jess.”

“Yuright? Came to see what you’re doing,” Jesse says as he lets himself in the room, all but barging past Eric.

Eric follows him in, already annoyed at the intrusion. 

“I told you what I’m doing. I’m sleeping.” 

Jesse looks him up and down. Eric is fully dressed, the lamp is on, and the bed is made. 

Eric clears his throat. “I’m  _ about _ to sleep.”  

“You’ve already been up here an hour,” Jesse says, turning his back to rummage through Dele’s hair products on the chest of drawers. 

Eric looks at the clock, wonders if he’s really been standing by the window for that long. 

“I’ve been on the phone,” Eric replies idly. He picks up Dele’s Armani hoodie off the floor, folds it neatly, and places it on his bed. 

Jesse shrugs and runs some of Dele’s hair gel through his own hair, pouting at himself in the mirror. 

“Well,” Jesse says, talking to his own reflection. “You’re not on the phone anymore, and you’re not sleeping, so why don’t you come down?” 

Eric looks past Jesse and out of the window. It’s a clear night and the stars are beginning to pierce the night sky. Eric takes a deep breath. He’s spent 45 minutes staring out of a window trying to convince himself that he shouldn’t kiss Dele again tonight. He’s gone through every reason why he shouldn’t  — ruining Dele’s career, ruining his own career, damaging the team dynamic, affecting both England  _ and  _ Spurs’ reputation, etc, etc  — and still, it’s not enough. His heart, finally, has won. 

“Come on, then,” Eric says, breaking his gaze away from the stars and looking to Jesse, who looks surprised but happy nonetheless.

“Yes, Dier!” Jesse skips across the room and claps him on the back, leading him out of the hotel room. “I  _ knew  _ I’d be able to get you to come down. That’s wicked that, ‘cause now Marcus owes me 50p.” 

“50p?” Eric laughs. He slips on some trainers at the door and sets off down the corridor with Jesse, tucked away inside his grey tracksuit jacket.

“50p is 50p,” Jesse beams. He practically bounces down the corridor and Eric isn’t sure if he’s more excited about having the whole team in the garden or about the 50p Marcus now owes him. Either way, Jesse radiates a certain happiness that Eric finds very infectious. He smiles at his teammate when they get in to the lift together, Jesse bobbing up and down on his heels. 

They work their way to the back of the hotel and slip outside through an open door that leads to the private garden. Eric is surprised at how warm it is outside and how brightly the stars are shining overhead. Down at the end of the garden, just over the hill, he can already hear muted laughter and conversation.

He begins to mentally prepare himself for seeing Dele.  _ Don’t smile too much _ , he tells himself,  _ don’t do anything obvious.  _ He figures nobody will find it weird if he goes straight over to sit with Dele, so that much should be fine. But what if Dele gets too close and someone notices? What if they leave together to go back to their room and it looks suspicious? Eric decides that if Dele gets up to leave, Eric will wait five minutes before going after him. 

“Can’t even buy a Freddo these days for 50p, man,” Jesse says. Eric realises Jesse has probably been talking to him this whole time they’ve been walking down the garden. He feels a sudden pang of guilt.

“I’m sure Marcus would give you a pound if you asked nicely,” Eric answers, nudging Jesse with his elbow. 

They reach the hill that lies at the end of the garden and begin to walk up. The chatter is louder now and Eric can already hear John and Kyle excitedly shouting at each other. 

It only takes a few steps before Eric can see over the hill. His teammates are scattered around a big Elm tree, most of them lying out on the grass and joking around with each other. Maguire, Kieran, Jordan, and Marcus are sitting cross-legged on the floor playing Uno. Danny Rose and Raheem are showing each other videos on their phones. Jordan and Trent are wrestling, but it’s clear that Jordan is letting Trent win. 

Eric looks up in the tree and sighs. John is straddling a branch, a few meters up, and he looks positively terrified. He’s shouting down at Kyle who is laughing at him and making no effort to help get him down. 

“Aw, man, as if he’s still up there,” Jesse says, shaking his head and laughing to himself. He jogs down the hill towards the tree, leaving Eric alone. 

Eric looks around again. He sees Gareth and the coaches. He sees Welbeck and Pickford. Everyone is lounging and chatting or playing Uno. It’s a relaxed, warm atmosphere. 

The only one missing is Dele. Harry isn’t here either, but Eric knows how strict Harry is about his bedtime and figures he already called it a night. 

Eric walks down to Jesse and gently tugs his arm, forcing his attention away from John-in-a-tree and onto Eric. “Hey, where’s Dele?”

Jesse holds Eric’s gaze for just long enough that Eric starts to feel uncomfortable. There’s a knowing smile on his lips that Eric isn’t too keen on. 

“I dunno,” he says, looking around. “He was just here. Maybe he’s around there?” Jesse points to a clearing on his left, just behind some bushes. Eric ushers a quick ‘thank you’ and makes his way to the clearing. 

_ Don’t be obvious,  _ he reminds himself.  _ Don’t smile too much. _

Eric passes the bushes and turns into the clearing. Dele is lying on the ground, staring up into the sky and pointing at the stars. Harry is lying next to him. 

Eric stands perfectly still and watches Harry tilt his head towards Dele, mouthing something Eric can’t understand from this distance. He’s pointing in the sky now, too, and Dele is smiling at him. He looks happy. They both do.

Silently, Eric turns and leaves.

He keeps his head down as he strides past his teammates towards the hotel, hands sunk into his pockets. 

“Where you going?” Jesse calls out. Eric pretends not to hear him and keeps going, keeps breathing, keeps telling himself everything is going to be fine because they go home tomorrow and Eric won’t have to see Dele for a whole summer. They can just pretend this never happened like they always do. 

_ It will be fine,  _ Eric mutters to himself when he’s in the elevator. He feels like he’s been punched in the stomach but he forces himself to stand up straight regardless.  _ It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine.  _

He looks at his own reflection in the mirrors that surround him and almost wants to laugh. How could he ever think something more would happen? That Dele would actually have serious feelings for Eric? Even the thought of it is absurd. It’s ridiculous. Eric has been completely ridiculous and now he’s made a total idiot of himself because Jesse will tell Dele that Eric came outside and then stormed back in and Dele will put the pieces together. He’ll know Eric came looking for him. He’ll know Eric was still interested. And tonight he’ll have to deliver the gentle let down. They’ll agree that the kiss meant nothing, that they should never have done it in the first place. Eric will agree, of course, but it’s going to kill something inside of him. 

He can already feel the tightness in his chest and the burning behind his eyes. 

He just manages to close his hotel room door before the first sob escapes him. 

Somehow, he finds his way to his bed. He collapses on it and buries his face into a pillow, trying to hold back a flood of tears. It just takes a second of remembering where Dele is right now to break him apart. He cries in a way he’s never cried before, raw and choked and ugly. It feels like his heart is being torn out of him because Dele doesn’t want him and Eric wants him  _ so bad _ . 

But he knew he could never have it. He knew this all along. Yet he still hoped, still thought that maybe there was a chance they could go against  _ everything _ to be something. 

They were nothing. Just friends who got too close and then pushed each other away. Friends who kissed once just to see how it would feel, only to find it didn’t feel right. 

But it  _ had _ felt right, at least for Eric. Kissing Dele had awoken something in him that he’d been trying to keep buried for most of his life. No girl had ever made his heart beat like that before. No girl had ever left him so desperately wanting more. But Dele hadn’t come back, because Dele doesn’t want more. 

Eric draws in one shaky breath after another and forces himself to stop crying. He sits up on the bed and rubs his eyes, clearing his blurred vision. It takes him a few minutes to collect himself, but eventually his breathing becomes more steady and the tears subside.

His suitcase lies open on the floor with his things thrown haphazardly inside. Eric decides to distract himself by unpacking it and repacking it. He gets down on to his knees and sits on his heels, picking through clothes and underwear and caps. Every now and then, his breathing becomes choked and he thinks he might burst into tears again, but for the most part he manages to hold it together, despite the blinding headache that has now crept up on him. 

After fifteen minutes, Eric forgets what he’s supposed to be doing and starts scrolling through his phone. He positions himself on the floor at the end of his bed, with his back against the frame and his legs stretched out in front of him. He flicks through photos from his childhood in Portugal and decides he’s definitely going to spend his summer in Lisbon. 

He’s smiling at photo of his sister on her first day of school when he hears the door click. Eric freezes and holds his breath. 

Dele walks into the room and then stops. 

“What are you doing down there?” He asks as he leans against a wall and begins to pull off his trainers. Eric stands up and uses his foot to close the lid of his suitcase. 

“Just packing,” he replies, but his voice gets stuck in his throat and it comes out a little strained. Dele throws his trainers down onto the floor and stands up straight. He hesitates a little before moving towards Eric. 

“Are you okay?” He asks, his tone laced with concern. Eric stares at the floor as Dele stops barely half a meter in front of him. He smells like fresh air and cut grass and the aftershave he loves so much. “Eric?” 

Eric doesn’t answer. He knows if he opens his mouth or looks at Dele or even so much as moves, he’s going to give it all away. It’s bursting out of him at the seams. 

Dele reaches out and curls his fingers around Eric’s wrist. His fingertips settle right where Eric’s pulse is. It’s a soft, gentle gesture that leaves knots in Eric’s stomach. 

“You look like you’ve been crying,” Dele comments, and he suddenly looks more serious. Eric swallows the lump in his throat and smiles a little, shaking his head. “Eric, what happened?” 

Eric keeps shaking his head. His eyes are welling up again. God, he hates himself. He doesn’t want to do this, not in front of Dele. 

“Please tell me what’s wrong,” Dele says. His voice is more desperate now. He’s trying to force Eric to make eye contact with him, but Eric just looks at the floor, continues shaking his head. Dele’s fingers rest under Eric’s chin and gently lift his head up. He ducks slightly to meet Eric’s watery gaze. “Talk to me, Diet.” 

The nicknames, the food fights, the secret handshakes, the movie nights, the way Dele fits perfectly against Eric’s side, the way he rests his head in between Eric’s shoulder blades, the way he kisses.  _ The way he kisses _ . 

“Kiss me,” Eric whispers. He doesn’t expect Dele to actually do it, just wants to get the words out of his throat, so he’s taken by surprise when Dele steps into the gap between them and plants his mouth on Eric’s. Eric almost freezes up, his heart and mind once again at conflict, but Dele keeps kissing him until Eric finds the courage to meet him the middle. 

“I’m here,” Dele breathes between kisses. Eric doesn’t realise how badly he needed to hear that until Dele actually says it, and then he can’t help the whimper that escapes him. It’s quiet, but Dele captures it, kisses it, puts his hands in the back of Eric’s hair. 

“I thought-” Eric kisses him. His chest is lurching again. He’s a mess. “I thought you weren’t-” 

“I’m here.” Dele kisses him. 

“You’re here.” Eric kisses him back. He has to stop to catch his breath. “I saw you,” he begins. He wants to just say it now or he knows he never will. “I saw you outside, with Harry, I thought…” 

The words get lost again. Dele gives him a moment. 

“I thought you’d changed your mind.”

Dele chews his bottom lip and looks Eric in the eye. “I told him. I told H about us.”

_ Oh.  _ Eric wants to kick himself for being so stupid. “Tonight?”

“I told him how I felt a while ago,” Dele confesses. “But I told him about the kiss, yeah. I wanted his advice.” 

“How you felt?” Eric repeats. 

“About you.” 

“How do you feel about me?” Eric doesn’t realise he’s losing his balance until he almost stumbles forward into Dele. Dele catches him and sits him down on the bed. “Wait,” Eric stops, his breathing suddenly becoming more rapid as he fills with panic. “You told Harry?” 

Dele nods and sits down next to him.  

“You told… you told Harry.” 

“Eric, it’s fine.” Dele puts his hand on Eric’s knee but Eric shakes his off. His whole body has gone cold and he feels like he’s just taken a breath under water. The pain is behind his ears, behind his eyes, filling his lungs. Harry knows. It’s coming out and Eric can’t contain this if Harry knows. 

“Why-” Eric inhales sharply. “Why would you-” Dele starts to say something but Eric refuses to listen to him, he’s too mad, too confused. He gets up and starts pacing, his hands covering his face in frustration.

“I told him because I trust him. I needed his advice about what to do because I’ve been fucking this up from day one, Eric, and I needed to not fuck it up anymore. I’m in love with you and I needed his help. If I thought this was just us fucking around then no, I wouldn’t have told him, but I’m not fucking around.” 

Eric lowers his hands. The alarming panic in his mind begins to still. 

“At first, I just told him how I felt. He was cool with it, he helped me come to terms with it. I would still be beating myself up about all of this if it wasn’t for Harry. Once I knew he was okay with the idea of it, I talked to him more, and then I told him about the night after the Croatia game. I told him I nearly kissed you.”

“What did he say?” Eric asks anxiously.

“He said ‘why didn’t you?’ and I told him it was because I was worried what it would do to my career.” 

“That’s not what happened-” 

“I know, but I didn’t want to drop you in it. I knew you wouldn’t want anyone to know. So I told him it was me who almost kissed you, and me who backed off.”

“But-” 

“He told me to do what makes me happy, Eric. He’s not against this, any of this. So I told him tonight what happened. I kind of… freaked out a bit. I was so scared I’d come back to this room and you would tell me you didn’t want this. I couldn’t bare the idea that that might happen and that I’d have to just accept it. So I stayed outside and I talked to Harry and he calmed me down and explained that I have to let you make your choice, regardless of what it is.”

Eric looks across the room and out of the window for a minute, thinking. In the past, he has routinely decided to not act on his feelings. He has chosen, instead, to lock them away and pretend they don’t exist, in the hope that one day they will fade away and allow him some peace. That was his choice from day one, because he didn’t believe there was any other option.

“Jesse told me you came out to the garden.”

Eric nods, still looking at the stars that dot the sky outside. He bites the inside of his mouth. 

“He said you went into the clearing and then turned around and went back.”

Eric nods again.

“Why didn’t you come over to me?” 

“Panicked,” Eric says softly, exhaling a small, self-deprecating laugh. “Panicked and ran away, basically.” 

“Are you mad I told Harry?”

Eric takes a deep breath and exhales slowly. “Kind of,” he says eventually, “but I’m glad you did it anyway.” 

“He won’t tell anyone.” Dele gets off Eric’s bed and walks over to the window. With his back to Eric, he leans forward, elbows resting on the sill. “He promised.” 

Eric can’t stop himself from walking over and standing next to him. They both lean on the sill together, arms crossed and gaze fixed on the stars above. 

“So where do we go from here?” Eric asks. Dele lays his head on Eric’s shoulder, still gazing up. 

“Now we go to bed, and then tomorrow we go home.” 


	7. Interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An short interlude between chapters 6 and 7. The promised night.

It’s the night that was promised. Their one night. After this, after Russia, they leave it all behind. As agreed. No more telling Harry, no more making each other jealous, no more sleeping in the same bed, and certainly no more of this stop-start, on-off thing.

They have this one night to do whatever they want and then they’re done. They’ll spend the summer apart and when they meet up again for the start of the new season, the feelings will be gone. They’ll go back to being just friends. 

But before that, they’ll give themselves this. 

_ One last night.  _

That’s what Eric tells himself when he turns out the lights and leads Dele across the room to his bed.

That’s what he tells himself when Dele pulls the duvet over both their heads and kisses him in the warm, safe darkness they have made for themselves. 

That’s what he tells himself when Dele finally finds the confidence to slip his tongue in Eric’s mouth, and when Eric responds by pulling Dele on top of him to straddle his hips. 

It’s what they whisper to each other when Dele is pressing the full length of his body against Eric’s, pulling off his shirt and softly biting at the skin where Eric’s neck meets his shoulder.  

It’s Eric’s excuse for why his hands find their way into Dele’s boxers, and why Dele’s name accidentally slips out of his mouth in a low moan. 

_ Because it’s just one night. _

It’s why Eric holds Dele for as long as he can, why he wants to explore every inch of Dele’s body before time runs out. When his lips graze Dele’s collar bone, his hips, the inside of his thigh, it’s because they don’t have long left. When Dele melts into every kiss and then closes his eyes in quiet frustration, it’s because he knows the seconds are counting down.

Eric can see it every time Dele uses his finger to outline the curve of Eric’s mouth. He can see Dele wanting to map him out while he still can. 

Eric thinks that between these little moments of forbidden kissing, between the seconds in which they’re breathing each other’s names, what they’re really trying to do is leave their trace all over each other, secret markings that say  _ I was here  _ in a language only they can read.  __

It’s why Eric makes a mental record of every single thing he loves about Dele’s body: the sharpness of his hip bones, the perfect hollow of his neck, the way he squirms when his ribs are brushed too lightly. It’s why he navigates his way down Dele’s arms, kisses every inch of skin, lets Dele’s fingers come to rest on his lips. Because he knows this is the only chance he’ll ever have. 

_ Because it’s just one night.  _

And when Dele fumbles with removing Eric’s joggers under the duvet, Eric doesn’t tell him to slow it down, doesn’t tell him to take his time. They don’t have such luxuries.

It’s a mess of desperate kisses and quick, clumsy handjobs under the covers. It’s Dele’s legs getting tangled with Eric’s and Eric’s new fascination with biting Dele’s ear lobes. It’s Dele’s fucking  _ giggles  _ when Eric touches his ribs. 

But it’s just one night, and Eric has to remind himself that this is all borrowed time.

Somewhere just shy of 2am, they fall asleep in just their underwear. Dele has settled himself comfortably against Eric’s side, his head resting on Eric’s chest and his arm wrapped loosely around Eric’s waist. Every now and then he twitches or moans or snuggles further into Eric. He’s a fussy sleeper. Always has been. 

Eric stays awake as long as he can to savour every last minute. He turns and smells Dele’s hair, kisses his forehead, and lightly runs his fingers up Dele’s back. When Dele flinches from the touch, Eric uses it as an excuse to pull him a little closer. 

Dele had tried to stay awake, too. It was right after Eric had made Dele come under the duvet. They were planting small kisses on each other, settling into place with Eric’s arm tucked under Dele’s neck. Dele had traced his the letters of his name across Eric’s chest, his eyes heavy with exhaustion.  

They both knew what it meant to fall asleep; it meant their night was over. That’s why Dele had pleaded with Eric to keep him awake, to tickle him or make them both coffee. Eric had considered it, but only for a moment. 

Then his head took over from his heart. 

He’d soothed Dele for a while, told him it was okay, that he should sleep. Dele had fallen asleep on him within minutes, his fingers resting on Eric’s chest where the ghost of his name still lingered. 

Eric sees the glow of 02:00 on the alarm clock right before his eyes slip shut. There’s warmth on his chest from where Dele is lying on him and the last thing he thinks about is Dele’s burgundy jumper. 


	8. Chapter 7

Eric drives through one sleepy town after the next. The sun beats down on his Jeep for hours as he cruises down long stretches of empty road towards the coast, Portuguese music blasting from the local radio station.

He drums his fingers on the steering wheel and sings along to the chorus of the song that’s playing. _Deixe tudo para trás,_ something about ‘leaving it all behind’ _._

The road signs tell him he’s 5km away from the beach.

It’s been two weeks since the World Cup ended. Since England were knocked out and sent home. Since Eric last spoke to Dele.

Dele had left Eric’s room before dawn that morning. When Eric woke up at 8:30am, there was just a cold, empty space where Dele had been lying next to him.

A handwritten note was left on Eric’s bedside table. Dele’s scrawled, untidy writing read: _Sorry. Couldn’t be here in the morning. Hate saying goodbye._

Eric still has the note folded up in his wallet. He doesn’t know what compelled him to keep it but at the time he figured he didn’t want anyone else to find it. Even now, it sits in his wallet in his pocket, small and silent but somehow always present in the back of Eric’s mind.

He thinks about it as the Portuguese landscape rolls by. He thinks about how they had fallen asleep with their fingers laced together under the duvet, how Dele had curled himself into Eric, and how nice it had been to feel Dele’s head resting between his shoulder blades again.  

It’s those quiet hours of the morning that Eric can’t stop thinking about. When he was in and out of sleep and it felt like time had come to a complete stop. The whole room smelled like Dele and his aftershave, the bed was warm with Dele’s body heat, and all he could hear was the gentle rise and fall of Dele’s breathing, like waves pulling in and out of the shore.

Eric falls asleep thinking about that night, wakes up reaching for Dele’s warmth. Even here, in Portugal, over a thousand miles away, he still waits for Dele to rest his head between his shoulder blades.

The Jeep comes to a stop by the side of the road and Eric turns off the ignition. Ahead of him, he can hear the pull of the tide.

For three hours, Eric walks along the beach, his hands in his pockets and the sea breeze billowing through his white shirt and khaki shorts. He sees maybe four or five people at most, and each of them bid him a friendly _boa tarde._

He’d come to Portugal to forget about Dele and everything that happened in Russia. For the first few days, it had worked. Eric had been so busy seeing friends and family and soaking up the culture he’d missed so much that he barely had a second to think of anything else. But in the evenings, when the hustle dies down and Eric is left to his own thoughts, he begins to think of the World Cup, of Jesse Lingard’s contagious smile and Harry Kane’s porridge and Kyle Walker’s stupid jokes. He misses it every day.

He misses training, he misses the Russian food, he misses the feel of his heart thumping in his chest right before they walk out onto the pitch. He misses the fans, the chants, and the overwhelming joy he felt when they won another match.

He misses Dele. _God, he misses Dele._

Eric feels his phone buzz in his pocket. He’s a few miles up some desolate beach with no one around except for the seagulls circling high above him. He doesn’t usually get signal out here so he’s a little bit surprised, thinks it might just be a reminder or something. As he takes his phone out of his pocket, he sees the notification: _TouchRoom._

Eric stops in his tracks. He has to look out over the ocean for a second to regain his composure.

They haven’t used TouchRoom in months.

It was an app that Dele insisted Eric download just over two years ago now, during the Euros. You open the app and hold your finger on the screen, it sends a notification to the person you’re synced with, and they open the app and see a red circle on their screen of where your finger is. If they hold that same spot, it sends a little vibration through both phones, letting you know you’re connected.

It was a joke at first, but then Dele started using it more often, sometimes in the middle of the night. They’d never talk about how much they used it, but Eric had come to love that little app when he was away in the summers. Dele had been in Ibiza or L.A or some exoctic getaway, and Eric was usually in Portugal. When they couldn’t talk on the phone, they’d send each other these little TouchRoom notifications. Something simple to say _I’m thinking about you._

Eric stares at the notification for a few seconds, wondering if it could be a mistake, but the notification says ‘now’. He unlocks his phone, opens the app, and, just like before, there’s a red circle in the middle of the screen.

The tide crashes somewhere in the distance when Eric takes a deep breath and places his finger on the circle. Two seconds later, he feels the vibration travel up his finger and into his bloodstream.

_I’m thinking of you._

Eric shakes his head, can’t believe he’s letting himself do this. They’d promised each other they’d stay away until the feelings were gone. It would just be easier for everyone that way.

He closes the app and puts his phone into flight mode.

Beside him, the waves rise and fall.

\--

In Eric’s third and final week in Portugal, he’s invited out for drinks with some friends he grew up in Portugal with.

They hit up some fancy restaurant, order drinks at a table outside, and talk in Portuguese all night. Eric does his best to keep up, but he’s had a few too many drinks and he feels himself starting to lose concentration. After a while, he gives up trying to follow the conversation and stares off into the distance, lost in thoughts of the World Cup and the penalty shootout and the sharpness of Dele’s hip bones.

Issie nudges him and says something in Portuguese. Eric stares at her blankly until she repeats it back to him in English.

“Are you okay?”

Eric nods quickly and smiles at her, swaying in his seat a little. He likes Issie, probably more than any of the other girls in the group. He’s known her since he was eight years old. Issie was born in England but raised in Portugal like Eric, so they’d gone to school together, learned Portuguese together. She’s charming and intelligent and well-spoken. Eric had wanted to date her in school, but he knew she was way out of his league.

Issie looks at him now with soft brown eyes and places a hand tentatively on his knee. “You’ve been quiet all evening,” she says. The conversation at the table is loud and Eric has to scoot a little closer to hear her properly. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Eric answers, his voice a little high pitched from the alcohol. “Just missing the World Cup.”

“Of course. You did so well,” Issie shoots him a small smile before sipping from her wine glass. She’s on her fourth, maybe even fifth glass of wine and doesn’t seem drunk at all. Eric has no idea how his friends are so composed right now when he feels like the earth just started spinning backwards. “Your whole team played very well.”

“I miss the team,” Eric says idly. If he focuses hard enough, he can just about hear the sound of the waves in the distance. He thinks about going for a swim, even though it’s just gone midnight.  

“How are things, with the team?”

“I miss Dele,” Eric says. It’s hot and his clothes are sticking to him and he wants to go for a swim, but he can’t remember how far away the coast is from the restaurant, can’t remember if it’s in walking distance or not.

Issie tightens her grip on Eric’s knee and steadies him.

“You’re very drunk, Eric,” She laughs. Eric shakes his head, tries to play it down. He didn’t realise just how drunk he was until he heard Dele’s name escape from his lips again. He doesn’t even know how Dele even just came up or why he mentioned him. Did Issie ask about him?

“He’s in Ibiza,” Eric continues. “I think. Might be home now.”

“I think we need to put you in a taxi, meu amor _,_ ” Issie says. She gets up from her seat and begins to lift Eric to his feet. Eric grumbles a little and says he wants to go down to the beach but now his other friends are getting involved too and the next thing he knows he’s being stuffed into the back of a taxi and sent home.

“Foi uma boa noite?” The taxi driver asks, glancing at Eric in his rearview mirror. Eric knows he’s asking if he’s had a good night but he doesn’t have the energy to hold a conversation in Portuguese right now, so he pretends to not understand and winds down the window, craving the sea breeze on his face.

Before he can stop himself, he takes out his phone and opens TouchRoom. His finger hovers over the screen and a bump in the road almost causes him to drop his phone, but Eric is overcome with a need to connect with Dele right now and he pushes his finger down into the center of the screen, watches the red circle pulse around it.

Eric stares at the screen, but nothing happens. Dele isn’t there. Eric leans back in his seat and exhales, already annoyed at himself for once again being so impulsive. He keeps his finger in place on the screen but doesn’t bother looking at it, just holds it in his lap while he stares at the blur of passing scenery.

He’s almost asleep in the back of the taxi when he feels the vibration. It jolts him awake and he sees the red circle turn white, meaning Dele is touching the same place on his own screen. Eric’s heart begins to flutter in his chest.

The breeze wakes up him a little and he looks out across the ocean, wondering where Dele is right now, _who_ he’s with.

A new circle appears on the screen and Eric has to bite back a smile. He touches it softly, his breath catching in his throat when he feels the familiar vibration again.

“ _I’m here_ ,” he whispers.

\--

After 8 long hours of travel time and 3 hours of delays, Eric finally makes it back to his apartment in North London. It’s somewhat stale after sitting empty for the past three months and there’s a large pile of unopened post cluttering his door mat.

With a sigh, he throws his bag onto the floor and jumps onto his bed.

Back to reality.

\--

Training starts again on August 6th.

Eric makes his way to the Spurs training grounds and parks up in the player car park. He can see Harry, Christian, Lucas, Hugo, and Winksy have already arrived, judging by the cars in front of him. Jan and Mousa usually arrive late, so it’s no surprise that their cars are missing.

No sign of Dele, either.

Eric turns off his ignition and sits still in his seat for a few minutes, staring ahead into the grey clouds that hang heavy above Tottenham.

He was supposed to come back to training with a clean slate. The feelings were supposed to be gone by now. That was what they’d agreed on.

And yet, he’s been sending Dele TouchRoom connections every night since the first time it happened in Portugal. And Dele has been sending them back, too. Sometimes at breakfast, sometimes when Eric is watching TV in the evening, and sometimes at 2am.

It’s just a stupid app that vibrates when they both touch it at the same time, so Eric doesn’t understand why it gives him butterflies every time he feels Dele connect on the other end, and he doesn’t understand why they’re using it more now than then did when they first got it. He wishes he had the willpower to just delete the app for good.

Eric pulls himself together, reminds himself that he picked his career. _They both did_. He gets out his car and grabs his bag from the boot.

As he turns to walk towards the building, he sees Dele’s Bentley rolling into the car park. Dele beeps him three times and Eric waves, pressing his mouth into a small smile.

Dele parks up and Eric doesn't know what to do. He figures it would be rude to just walk off without him so he slowly makes his way over to Dele’s car.

“Morning, Diet!” Dele beams at him as he climbs out of his car and closes the door behind him. He goes into the back and collects his bag.

“Morning, Delboy,” Eric replies.

Dele throws his bag over his shoulder and walks over to Eric. Eric thinks they might hug but then Dele stops about a meter short and nods towards the training grounds.

“Shall we?”

Eric nods and they set off across the car park.

“How was Portugal?” Dele asks, staring at the floor. His hair is a little bit lighter and there’s a glow to him. He’s definitely been in Ibiza.

“Portugal was good. I needed it,” Eric replies, and then worries how that might come across. He doesn’t know if he should be acknowledging what happened between them or if he’s supposed to pretend none of it ever happened.

“It wasn’t really a long enough summer, was it?” Dele says. Eric laughs and shakes his head.

“Definitely not.”

Not for what they needed it for, anyway. Eric was stupid to think his feelings for Dele would go away in three weeks.

Even now, just seeing him, hearing his voice, Eric knows nothing at all has changed.

\--

“Eric!” Mousa screams across the training pitch, signalling to Harry Winks who is running at Eric with the ball. Eric makes a defensive move but he’s too late, Winks has dribbled the ball straight past him, too fast for Eric to catch.

“You little fucker!” Eric shouts, just managing to grab at the back of Harry’s orange bib. He pulls them both the ground and Harry collapses in a fit of laughter.

“You’re too slow!” Winks teases, climbing to his feet and brushing himself down. Eric ruffles his hair affectionately.

“No, you’re just too damn fast!”

Jan runs over to them and starts a new game of Rondo. Eric is put into a circle with Winksy, Mousa, Lucas, Kieran, Toby, and Sonny. Dele and Jan are in the middle, and both of them are _terrible_ losers.

After three solid minutes of trying and failing to get the ball, Dele starts to get frustrated. Eric can see him pouting when he kicks the ball to Lucas barely a split second before Dele reaches him. Eric can’t stop himself from laughing at Dele, and Dele definitely sees it, because the next time he makes a play for the ball at Eric’s feet, his grabs Eric’s shirt and lightly shoves him.

“Hey!” Eric shouts after him, but he can’t hide the grin that stretches across his face. Dele has always hated Rondo and Eric knows for a fact that that’s why Jan puts him in the middle.

“You’re being mean!” Dele grumbles back when Eric kicks the ball to Winksy, just out of Dele’s reach. Dele doesn’t even make a play for the ball, just hangs around Eric for a few seconds longer, fake-glaring at him.

“I love you really,” Eric says, still laughing. There’s a sharpness in his chest that begins to suffocate him when he realises what he’s just said, but he pushes it to one side. He can’t think about that right now.

The ball unexpectedly comes back to Eric’s feet and now Dele is barely a meter in front of him, closing in. Eric knows exactly what Dele will do next, knows how his feet move, and in the one second that Dele’s legs are apart, Eric slips the ball straight through.

What Eric doesn’t anticipate though, is Jan _knowing_ that Eric won’t be able to resist nutmegging Dele. Which is why Jan is already waiting for the ball to come through, and why he intercepts it with ease. The circle groans at Eric but Eric can’t bring himself to care. Dele is staring daggers at him in the most dramatic fashion and Eric loops his arm around his shoulders, one hand coming to rest on Dele’s chest. The rest of the team disperse around them.

“I got you good, didn’t I?” Eric asks, smirking when Dele scoffs.

“Shut up. I made it easy,” Dele replies. “I opened my legs for you.” Eric glances sideways at Dele and Dele blushes. “I mean-”

“I know what you meant,” Eric laughs, knocking his hip into Dele. His arm is still draped around Dele’s shoulder and Dele leans in to him a little.

“Missed you, Diet,” Dele says quietly, a little more serious now. Eric pulls him closer and squeezes his shoulder.

“I missed you, too.”

“Come on, love birds!” Trippier calls out. The rest of the team have begun a new drill and they’re all waiting for Eric and Dele.

\--

Back in the training room, Dele teaches everyone his new finger tricks. It takes Eric and Mousa about 30 seconds to figure it out but Winksy struggles for a good ten minutes before Dele finally gives in and shows him how to do it.

The team are just hanging out, catching up and asking everyone about their summer, about the World Cup. Jan and Mousa can’t resist having a little dig about the final Belgium game but Eric just rolls his eyes at the comment. All in all, he’s glad to be back with his club.

It feels like home.

Eric sits on the bench by his locker, discussing World Cup highlights with Jan and scrolling through Instagram on his phone. Spurs have posted a photo of him, Dele, Kieran, Mousa, and Jan in the training centre. It was taken when they all first arrived that morning. Jan and Mousa are on the treadmills and the rest of them are standing around, laughing at Jan’s ridiculous joke. Dele has his hand on Eric’s back.

“What a goal, man,” Jan says, and Eric looks up from his phone.

“Huh?”

“Kieran, in the Croatia game.”

“Oh, yeah,” Eric mumbles. He looks back down at the photo, at Dele’s hand on his back. That was this morning, that’s them. He looks across at Dele. That’s him. They look happy. They _are_ happy.  

Eric makes a mental note to ask the media time to send him the photo. He wants to upload it onto his own Instagram, too.

Out of nowhere, Dele runs over to him and yanks him up by his arm.

“Eric, do the bottle flip challenge with me,” Dele says, impatiently pulling on his arm. Eric issues an apologetic glance to Jan before letting himself be dragged across the room to the island in the middle.

Lucas flips his water bottle, watches it fall over, and groans.

“Dele is good at this,” Eric comments. He knows because they _always_ do this challenge and Dele _always_ wins.

“You’re getting better!” Dele grins. He picks up his own water bottle, tosses it in the air, and watches it land perfectly on the flat surface. Lucas groans even louder before walking off back to his locker.

“Stop showing off,” Eric says, shaking his head. Dele hands him his bottle of water and Eric flips it. It lands in the right position but there’s slightly too much force and it wobbles and falls over.

Dele leans forward on the counter, arms crossed, and grins at him. “You’ll get there eventually, Diet. Shall I show you how to do it properly? Maybe you could take notes.”

“I hate you,” Eric grumbles.

“You could never hate me,” Dele replies, giving Eric just the smallest hint of a smile.

Eric holds his gaze for a moment and loses himself in Dele’s deep brown eyes, the glow of his skin, the way Dele sometimes holds back his smile for no reason at all. Eric wishes he wouldn’t; Dele’s smile can light up the whole room.

“Let’s go for dinner,” Dele says suddenly. Eric hesitates, looks at Dele across the counter. He can’t tell if Dele is serious or not, and if he _is_ serious then what would that mean? Would they be going as just friends? Just the two of them? Would they invite anyone else?

“I…” Eric begins, but he loses his train of thought. Dele is staring him down, biting his bottom lip in anticipation. Eric wants to kiss him right there and then. “Okay,” he says quietly. “But I don’t want to go out. Just come over and I’ll cook instead.”

“Okay,” Dele smiles at him. One of those smiles that lights up the whole room. “Let’s go.”


	9. Chapter 8

Eric doesn’t know what inspired him to agree to all of this, but now Dele is in his passenger seat with his feet up on the dash - even though Eric has told him a  _ million  _ times how dangerous that is - and they’re crawling through North London traffic on their way back to Eric’s place so that they can cook homemade pasta, or homemade pizza, or ‘something Portuguese’. Dele still hasn’t made his mind up yet what he wants. 

“What about a lasagne?” Dele asks idly, picking at something on his shoelaces. His knees are bent into his chest and Eric has to slap his leg to get him to put his feet back down. Dele snaps his gaze to Eric and pretends to be hurt even though Eric barely even touched him.

“Dele, if I crash, your legs will be shattered into a thousand pieces. You will literally never play football again,” Eric says, sighing. They’ve had this conversation too many times for him to count and, health and safety reasons aside, Eric is also a bit sick of finding Dele’s shoe prints on his otherwise pristine dashboard. 

Dele stays completely quiet until Eric finally relents and gives his leg a quick rub where he hit it.

“I will literally stitch those thousand pieces back together and come back stronger than ever,” Dele says, pouting, but he does as he’s told and keeps his feet in the footwell. 

“I don’t doubt that one bit,” Eric smiles. 

The traffic is moving slowly and he keeps glancing sideways at Dele, watching him scroll through his phone for a while before fiddling with Eric’s aux cord and plugging his own phone in instead. He starts a couple of songs, changes his mind a few seconds in, and then eventually settles on  _ I Know You  _ by Craig David, humming along to the tune.

“Do you mind?” Eric says when Dele turns up the volume and presses random buttons until he finds the one that activates the car’s seat warmers. Dele simply looks at him with feigned innocence and shrugs. 

“What?” He asks. He shuffles in his seat and kicks off his trainers, drumming his fingers on the the car door in time to the song. 

"You're pressing all my buttons."

“What do you have in here?” Dele asks as he begins rummaging around in Eric’s glove box. 

“I don't know. Car things,” Eric mumbles. He keeps his gaze fixed on the road but he can sense Dele smirking next to him. 

“Why do you have condoms in your glove box?” Dele asks, his voice all nonchalant. Eric looks over at his glove box where Dele is poking around and briefly wonders if Dele is telling the truth. He thinks he  _ might  _ have put some in when he first got the car, just in case, but he’s certainly never had to use them even if he did. “And a spoon?” 

“Can you please stop going through my stuff?” Eric asks, frowning.  

“Are the condoms and the spoon connected?” 

Eric reaches over and closes the glove box, forcing Dele to pull his hand back. 

Dele slouches back in his seat and sighs at the traffic when Eric once again comes to a standstill. “I can’t believe you nutmegged me today.” 

Eric smiles smugly to himself. He’s been thinking about that moment since it happened. The look on Dele’s face was priceless. “I can. You’re getting sloppy.” 

“You’re being mean to me today, Diet.” 

“How am I being mean to you?” Eric turns to Dele and raises his eyebrows, shooting him a quick, questioning glance. Dele makes a face at him and pulls his knees up to his chest, his feet resting on the edge of the seat. Eric has to refrain from bringing it up  _ again _ . 

“I am  _ not  _ getting sloppy,” Dele scoffs.

“Too much partying in Ibiza, Del.”

Dele pauses for a second before turning to stare intently at Eric. Eric feels a lump forming in his throat. He knows what’s coming next.

“How did you know I was in Ibiza?” Dele asks, sounding surprised. "I didn't post anything on Instagram."

Eric figures there’s no point in lying. It’s not that he was stalking Dele or anything, he was just simply checking social media like everyone else probably was. Besides, Dele goes to Ibiza at least once a year. It’s hardly an out-there assumption. 

“I saw you on the Snapmap,” Eric says, trying to sound calm and collected. He can see Dele thinking it all through, putting the pieces of the puzzle together.

“But you don’t use Snapchat anymore. I was with you when you deleted it.” 

“Yeah, well, I got it back,” Eric says quietly. His heart is racing because he can’t come up with an excuse quick enough. The only reason he re-downloaded it was purely so he could see where Dele was on the map. Previously, he’d complained to no end about Snapchat (specifically Dele’s overuse of Snapchat) and eventually deleted it, insisting he never used it anyway. It was Dele who had first shown Eric the Snapmap and Eric had called it creepy.

Dele doesn’t say anything but Eric can see him smirking in the corner of his eye. He knows he has no defence for this one. Dele has caught him red handed. 

“So what were you doing there?” Eric asks, clearing his throat.

“Partying, mostly,” Dele says. He falls a little quiet before adding, “Met some cool people out there.” 

“Yeah?” Eric asks.

“We should make lasagne,” Dele says firmly. “Is it Portuguese?” 

“No, Del, it’s Italian.” 

“But they’re close, right? Portugal and Italy?” 

“What do you mean by close? They’re in the same continent, but they’re not exactly close.” 

“Italy is shaped like a boot.”

“Yes.”

“But not a football boot?” 

Eric glances between the traffic and Dele, not sure if Dele is being serious or not. Dele is still picking at his shoelaces and Eric can’t read his expression, but he thinks he sees Dele bite back a smile. “No. Not a football boot.” 

“Would be cool though, wouldn’t it? Like if it had the studs, too.” 

Eric turns and looks at Dele incredulously. Dele breaks out into a childish grin and Eric gives him a little shove for winding him up.

\--

“So it’s pasta, then meat, then sauce, then pasta, meat, sauce?” Dele asks, standing in Eric’s kitchen with lasagne sheets in one hand and a jar of white cheese sauce in the other. Eric continues stirring the mince with the fresh veg and tomato sauce. He smiles patiently at Dele and points to the box of lasagne sheets.

“No, it’s pasta, meat, pasta, meat, pasta, sauce.” 

“Oh,” Dele frowns and begin to inspect the jar of white lasagne sauce. “So you only add the sauce once? Then why do you get so much in a jar?” 

“Well, everyone does it differently. You can add sauce in the middle, too, if you want.” 

“But that’s not how you make it?” Dele hops up to sit on the island counter in the middle of the kitchen.  

“I only add the sauce on top.” 

“Well you’re the head chef so I’ll follow your recipe.” Dele sets the jar down and starts scrolling through his phone. Eric watches him for a minute, watches Dele’s face light up when he sees something funny on Instagram. “I’m sending you a meme,” Dele says, chuckling to himself. “This is _so_ you.”

Eric finishes up with the mince and then shows Dele how to properly layer the lasagne dish. Dele watches with interest, jumping down from the counter to stand next to Eric. He leans forward and rests his head in his hands, nodding along when Eric explains what he’s doing. Eric actually thinks Dele might be listening, might be taking all of this in, which is odd because Dele usually shows no interest whatsoever in learning how to cook.

“Now the sauce, and then the cheese,” Dele says, passing Eric the bowl of grated cheese. Eric smiles gratefully at him and gestures for Dele to sprinkle the cheese on top once he’s poured the sauce. 

“So now we put it into the oven so that the pasta cooks and the cheese melts,” Eric explains. Dele nods and opens the oven door. Eric places the lasagne dish inside and sets the timer for thirty minutes. 

To pass the time while the lasagne cooks, Eric watches Dele dance enthusiastically around the kitchen to Drake’s  _ Nice For What _ . He leans against the counter, finishing off his second bottle of beer, and simply lets Dele loose around the kitchen, watching him pull off the most ridiculous moves that Eric knows for a fact Dele would never attempt in front of anyone else.

Dele loves the attention and plays up to it at every opportunity, eventually reaching for Eric and pulling him into the dance. Eric sets down his beer and entertains him for a few seconds, but he can’t dance, like,  _ at all _ , and he doesn’t want to embarrass himself, so he steps out and beckons for Dele to continue.  

“You’re a true superstar, aren’t you?” Eric teases. He’s only had two bottles of beer but he already feels a little bit fuzzy around the edges. Dele is dancing like an idiot and Eric can’t help but laugh joyfully at him. Dele just radiates pure happiness sometimes and it’s hard not to let it fill the entire room. 

Dele grins at him and slides to a stop in front of Eric’s feet. He’s close. Too close. Eric has to stop himself reaching out for him to pull him even closer. He turns back to the oven instead to check on the lasagne and distract himself.

“It hasn’t been half an hour yet,” Dele points out, poking Eric in the ribs. “Let’s get some beers and we can go play Fifa. I’m playing Spurs, you can be Arsenal.” 

“No chance,” Eric laughs. He follows Dele into the living room with more beers and catches the cushion that Dele throws at him without warning.

They crash on the sofa together and play three rounds of Fifa. Eric clutches a win in extra time of the first match, only to be destroyed by Dele 3-0 in the second match and 3-1 in the third. Dele gloats about it for a good five or six minutes until Eric shoves a cushion in his face. 

Dele looks like he might throw the cushion back, but then he doesn’t, he just holds it against his chest and takes a deep breath.

“Hey,” Dele says, and Eric instantly picks up on the change in his tone. He’s smiles nervously and Eric sees his grip tighten around the cushion. “I want to tell you something.” 

Eric’s heart begins to race in his chest. The usual playful expression on Dele’s face has been replaced with something much more serious, something Eric hasn’t seen since their last night in Russia. 

In the worst possible timing, the oven timer begins to beep loudly in the kitchen. Eric looks around and Dele does too. When Eric looks back, Dele is running his hands nervously though his hair. 

“Go on,” Eric says, but the beeping is loud and intrusive. Dele shuffles in his seat and shakes off the comment, presses his mouth into a smile instead. 

“I’ll tell you after dinner, it’s no biggie.” 

Eric feels like it might be a biggie.

“Are you sure? The food can wait a minute,” Eric offers, but Dele continues shaking his head, insists that it’s fine, says it can wait. 

Eric nods and goes into the kitchen to fetch the food. The oven is beeping at him but he can’t think about what he needs to do to stop it. He’s a little bit tipsy and all he can think about is the serious expression on Dele’s face and all the things it could possibly mean.

_ What if he wants to tell you he’s lost all romantic feelings?  _

Eric presses the button to turn off the timer and then stares at the oven for a moment, trying to organise his thoughts.

_ What if he says he’s enjoying just being friends? That the break worked?  _

Then why were they using TouchRoom so often?

Eric takes the lasagne dish out of the oven and places it onto a chopping board, watches the melted cheese bubbling away on top. 

_ What if Harry has told someone else and Dele needs to warn you? What if the whole team know?  _

Eric doesn’t even know what he’d do. He already feels like Jesse might have some inkling, although he has no idea how. Who would Harry even tell? Maybe Kieran.  _ Would Kieran care? _

“How’s it look?” Dele calls out from the living room.

Eric starts cutting it up, digging into the pasta with a little too much force.  _ Who would Kieran tell? Would he tell Gareth? Would Gareth still let him play?  _ He attempts to lift one half of the lasagne onto a plate with a fork and knife but all the filling falls back into the dish and he ends up making a mess of it all.  _ What if something got leaked? What if they were photographed through Eric’s hotel window?  _ He didn’t use the right utensil because he wasn’t paying attention and now he’s ruined dinner. 

“Eric?” 

“Hm?” Eric calls back. He’s trying to salvage it but it’s a mess. He cuts it up some more but that makes it worse. This whole thing is a mess. Why is getting upset about lasagne? “It’s fine,” he mutters, scooping up more broken pasta and sauce. It’s just lasagne so why is he getting upset?

“What’s going on?” Dele is standing next to him, looking at the heap of lasagne in the dish. He takes the fork out of Eric’s hand. Eric takes a deep breath and composes himself. 

“I ruined it,” Eric says simply. Dele shakes his head and gently moves Eric out of the way.

“Shut up, no you haven’t.” Dele roots around in Eric’s kitchen draws until he finds what he needs to get the lasagne out of the dish and on to two plates. He hands one to Eric, and it actually doesn’t look too bad now that it’s all in one place. Eric shoots Dele a small, grateful smile. 

They eat at the kitchen table and make small talk. Dele comments on how good the food tastes and Eric thanks him, tells him it was a joint effort. He sinks his fork into the pasta and moves it around on his plate, still wondering what it is that Dele is going to tell him. He knows it won’t be good news because of the expression on Dele’s face when he’d said it. Eric is almost sure it has something to do with Harry, with Harry telling someone or Harry now disapproving of what went down in Russia. Maybe Harry saw Eric put his arm around Dele in training and now wants them to stay away from each other. 

Once Dele has cleared his plate and Eric has more or less had a go at eating, Eric starts tidying up the kitchen. Dele sits at the table and watches him silently. Eric can feel Dele’s gaze on his back every time he moves around the room, putting dishes in the dishwasher. He’s clattering the utensils and the oven extraction fan is still humming, but he can’t bring himself to turn it off because the noise is helping him block out what is about to happen next.

“I’ve met someone,” Dele says.

Eric continues putting the dishes into the dishwasher. He closes his eyes for a moment and then swallows back the lump in his throat. 

“I met her in Ibiza.” 

Eric stands up straight and turns to face Dele. “That’s nice,” he mumbles, smiling. He falls back against the counter but he doesn’t know what to do with his hands so he puts them behind his back and leans on them.

Dele smiles softly at him, almost guiltily, and Eric smiles back, but there’s a blankness to this conversation. Eric knows he should say something, should ask her name or how they met or what she’s like, but the words get tangled in his throat and he feels like there’s a crushing weight on his chest. 

“Shall we watch TV?” Dele asks, getting up from his seat. Eric stares silently at the floor and then nods. He doesn’t want to ask about the girl and he doesn’t want Dele to tell him, so this works out better. 

They sit and watch TV in silence. Eric knows he’s being childish, knows he needs to say something to clear the air.  _ Of course _ Dele was eventually going to meet someone. This was inevitable and Eric feels like a complete idiot for not seeing this coming. 

Eric looks at Dele across the sofa, watches him watch the TV. Dele’s expression is neutral, if not a little sad. He looks like it’s concentrating on the show until he suddenly turns to meet Eric’s gaze. 

“Are you mad with me?” Dele asks, his voice small. He pulls his knees up to his chest and rests his head on them, still turning to look at Eric. 

“Of course not,” Eric replies, his voice catching in his throat. He’s not mad. He’s a lot of things but he’s not mad. “I’m happy for you, Del.”

Dele considers this for a moment and lets his gaze fall to the sofa. “It’s not serious or anything. I mean, I like her, but we’re just dating.” 

“Okay,” Eric says.

“She’s nice.”

“Okay.” 

“She’s called Ruby.” 

Eric opens his mouth to say something but nothing materialises.  _ Ruby _ . It’s a pretty name for what is most likely a very pretty girl. He presses his mouth closed and simply nods in acknowledgement. 

The lasagne hasn’t settled quite right in his stomach and he feels sick. 

“I thought it might help-” 

“I’m happy for you, Dele, honestly,” Eric interrupts, a little harsher than necessary. There’s a burning in his chest and he just doesn’t want to do this, doesn’t want to go through this. “I think it’s a good thing.”

“Do you?” Dele asks. He sounds surprised. 

Eric nods and presses his mouth into a wide, fake smile. “Yes. I think it’s good. I’m glad you’re dating someone.” 

Dele doesn’t say anything. 

“Really,” Eric continues. “It’s a good thing. I’m happy for you.” 

“Okay,” Dele mumbles. He chews his bottom lip and looks back at the TV. They both fall silent again and watch the rest of the show about the world’s most expensive homes.

When it finishes, Dele gets up and walks into the kitchen. Eric stays sitting on the sofa, staring at the rolling credits on the screen. He hears Dele putting his trainers on and closes his eyes against the ache that has once again settled in his chest.

“I’m gonna go,” Dele says, hovering in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen. Eric doesn’t move, just turns and issues him a quick, polite nod. 

“Okay.”

"Thank you for dinner."

"You're welcome." 

“I’ll see you in training, then.” Dele nervously taps his fingers on the door frame, hesitating to see if Eric will say anything else. When he doesn’t, Dele turns and leaves. 

Eric listens as the front door opens and closes. 

He gets up and walks into the kitchen. He lifts his coat off the back of one of the dining table chairs and digs around in his pockets until he finds his wallet. Inside, he pulls out the handwritten note Dele had left in the hotel room in Russia. 

_ Sorry. Couldn’t be here in the morning. Hate saying goodbye.  _

Eric scrunches up the paper in his fist and tosses it into the bin. 


	10. Chapter 9

It’s the first two weeks that are the hardest.

Once the secret is out that Dele has a new supermodel girlfriend, the team won’t stop asking about her. On the pitch, in the dressing room, even when they’re all eating lunch together in the cafeteria - everyone wants to hear about Ruby.

In the first couple of weeks, Dele tries to change the subject whenever Eric is around. He plays it down, brushes off the comments and insists she’s not his girlfriend, that they’re just dating. It doesn’t stop anyone asking to see photos or asking how they met or asking Eric what _he_ thinks of her, though.

“Haven’t met her,” Eric replies bluntly to Lucas one day in the dressing room. He promptly gathers his things and leaves before he gets pulled into another conversation he doesn’t want to be a part of.

It’s in the first two weeks that Eric experiences almost every emotion possible. He cycles through feeling hurt, feeling betrayed, feeling angry, and feeling completely stupid.

At night, when he’s trying to forget about it for just long enough to fall asleep, that’s when the guilt sets in. _Who is he to say who Dele can and cannot date?_ He feels the overwhelming sense of inadequacy and the rush of embarrassment. _How could he ever think that he would be good enough for someone like Dele?_ But most of all he feels the shame. _It should never have happened in the first place._

At night, when he’s trying to forget about it for just long enough to fall asleep, it’s not Dele he hates. It’s not even Ruby that he hates. It’s himself.

They still speak, of course. Dele strikes up conversation easily and often whenever he sees Eric. It’s like nothing at all has changed for him. He’ll carelessly throw an arm around Eric’s shoulder and nudge him when he says something funny. Eric is civil about it because he doesn’t want to draw attention, but when it’s just them and Dele is joking around and putting his hand on Eric’s back, Eric shrugs it off, tells him he’s too tired to hang around.

For a split second, Dele’s careful composure almost breaks, but then he smiles and shrugs it off. _Alright, Diet!_ He says brightly. _See you tomorrow, then!_

Eric can’t bring himself to hang out with Dele anymore because when he sees Dele leaving training early, he knows it’s probably for a date. When he sees Dele checking his phone, he knows he’s checking her texts. When he sees Dele’s fake smile fade away in quiet, unseen moments, Eric knows it’s probably because he’s missing Ruby.

In the first two weeks, Eric doesn’t do much more than sit on the sofa and stare blankly at the TV.

One time, when he’s pushing food around on his plate and wondering where his appetite went, he decides to watch YouTube videos on his TV. He brings up World Cup footage, watches all of England’s goals, the penalty shootout, the interviews and the press conferences. He watches over an hour of footage and then comes across a video that a fan uploaded of the England bus arriving at the hotel in St Petersburg. It’s the hotel where Eric and Dele first kissed, the hotel where Eric saw Dele outside with Harry and panicked about it, the hotel where they shared a room and gave each other handjobs and kissed messily beneath the duvet because they didn’t have a lot of time.

In the video, the fan zooms in on Eric and Dele getting off the bus together. Eric watches himself in the video, watches himself grinning at Dele, looping his arm around Dele’s shoulders as they walk in together. Eric remembers that moment because they’d spent the bus ride watching Eric’s GQ video on YouTube. Eric had found his name in Dele’s search history and it had filled him with a nervous, tingling warmth. Eric remembers exactly how he felt in that moment. Blissful and happy and content. He had Dele, he _had_ him.

Now he’s lost him. Now he’s numb.

In the first two weeks, Eric only cries once, and it’s after he watches that video.   

\--

“You’re giving me a run for my money!” Harry jokes one day when he catches Eric still on the training pitch at 8:45pm. Eric is stretching, running, doing whatever he can to clear his mind. These past couple of weeks he’s been the first to arrive and the last to leave.

“Just want to up my game,” Eric replies, shrugging. It’s freezing cold and he can see his breath when he exhales. The floodlights beam down on them and Harry places his hands on his hips. He looks at Eric meaningfully and Eric suddenly feels nervous. He’s been avoiding Harry since this whole thing took place.

“Don’t wear yourself out,” Harry says simply.

Eric gives him a questioning look but doesn’t reply. He wants to play it off, like he doesn’t know what Harry is talking about. He shuffles on his feet and pulls his training jacket tighter around his neck, eyes drifting over the pitch and the night sky and everywhere but Harry. Eventually Harry takes the hint and leaves him to his stretches.

Eric runs around the pitch eight times until he collapses in an exhausted, breathless heap by the bench. A sudden urge to just scream almost tears out of him, but he doesn’t have the energy for it.

He leaves the training ground at 10:00pm every night that week.

\--

After a month has passed, Eric agrees to go on a date. One of his old friends in London has insisted that Eric will _love_ this girl. She’s a colleague of his and she’s pretty and chatty and she likes dogs. 

He meets the girl at a quiet restaurant in North London, an Italian place with candles and a live pianist. It’s warm and cosy and Eric arrives ten minutes early, so he sits at the bar and orders a drink and listens to the piano.

Throughout the restaurant, couples are smiling at each other, families are sharing big pizzas, and groups of friends are reuniting over endless glasses of red wine.

Sophie arrives on time at 7:30pm. She finds Eric at the bar and Eric gives her a kiss on the cheek and thanks her for coming. She’s tall, with long, curly blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. Her face is chiselled like a model, and Eric can tell she’s had something done to her lips to make them bigger. She looks nice, but Eric doesn’t really feel anything when he looks at her.

They order food and get talking. She is, in fact, very chatty. She likes dogs and horses and rabbits. She works in admin for a local secondary school. She likes Italian food but she prefers Chinese. Chinese is her favourite.

Eric nods along and smiles politely. He keeps finding himself losing concentration and glancing around the room to see what everyone else is doing.

“I think I’d like to be Instagram verified,” Sophie says, smiling at Eric across the table. She brings her wine glass up to her mouth and takes a small sip. Eric looks at her, confused.

“What does that mean?” He asks, laughing.  

“You know, like the blue tick?”

“Oh,” Eric nods, but he still no idea. “Cool.”

“Could you help me with that?” Sophie ventures, cutting up her green beans into small, bite-sized pieces. Eric watches her meticulously cut up the food and then shrugs, a slight frown creasing his forehead.

He’s about to tell her he doesn’t know what that means when something catches his attention. His phone has lit up with a purple notification that makes Eric’s heart stop. TouchRoom.

Eric opens the app and stares at the pulsating spot where Dele is holding his screen.

“What’s that?” Sophie asks, nodding at Eric’s phone. Eric holds the phone in his hand and inhales shakily. _Why is Dele doing this?_

Eric shakes his head, tells her it’s nothing. He closes the app without responding and stuffs his phone in his jacket pocket.

“So, can you help me get Instagram verified?” Sophie asks again. 

\--

After two months have passed, Eric stops pretending he wants to go on dates. Dele stops pretending that everything is fine.

They near enough stop speaking, unless it’s necessary or unless someone else is around.

On October 24th, Eric catches himself opening their WhatsApp chat one night when he’s lying in bed staring at the ceiling. Their last message was sent on August 5th, the day before they got back for training. It’s a standard conversation about some new boots that Dele had picked out for the season. They talk about Jan and about Poch and training schedules. Eric had no idea at the time that this might be their last conversation. He’d ended it by calling Dele an idiot.

He stares at the messages in bed, scrolls far enough up until he gets back to the conversations they had in Russia. Back when they were the old Dele and Eric. He glances through a few of the messages, but there are hundreds, and it hurts to look at them again.  

July 9th - 4:17pm  
_Bring me food diet_

July 9th - 4:19pm  
_Diet im starving!!!_

July 9th - 4:38pm  
_Thank u i love u :D_

July 10th - 11:08am  
_Come play fortnite with me and tripps_

July 10th - 11:10pm  
_Are u cold in ur room? Im really cold :(_

July 10th - 11:11pm  
_No i didnt bring one :( can i wear yours?_

July 10th - 11:17pm  
_yes much warmer now thank u diet x_

July 11th - 09:28am  
_we will win tonight diet :) good vibes_

July 11th - 09:30am  
_come to my room and bring food x_

Eric scrolls further up, pulling through hundreds more messages. He finds a conversation from last Christmas that makes his heart hurt.

December 21st - 11:49pm  
_are u awake?_

December 21st - 11:49pm  
_bored and miss u_

December 21st - 11:50pm  
_u were so funny in training today_

December 21st - 11:50pm  
_No lol nothing in particular u just make me laugh a lot_

December 21st - 11:50pm  
_no for real diet you actually make my day lol_

December 21st - 11:51pm  
_like every day_

December 21st - 11:51pm  
_No u will always come first lol. No matter what :)_

Dele’s status changes to ‘Online’ and Eric freezes, paranoid that Dele can somehow see what he’s doing. He wonders if he’s favourited a message or done something to alert Dele, but then just as quickly as he came online, he goes again.

Eric types out _I’m here_ and then deletes it. He’s done it almost every night since Russia and he doesn’t really know why because he’s never once actually sent the message.

With a defeated sigh, he closes WhatsApp and opens TouchRoom. He still hasn’t been able to bring himself to delete it, even though he knows he really should. Dele hasn’t tried using it since the night Eric went on his date with the girl who worked in a secondary school. Sophie, the girl with the long blonde hair who likes dogs and horses. After that it was Zoey, who was brunette and didn’t really seem to like anything. Then it was Olivia, who Eric had a lot in common with and who he thought was the prettiest, but who he just didn’t ever get around to calling.

All three dates had been arranged by Chris, one of Eric’s old school friends. Eric had gone along because he felt like he had to, not because he wanted to.

They were all nice girls and Eric felt guilty about not calling them back, but he knew there was no point in lying to them. It would only cause more issues further down the line if he actually started dating one of them.

And what would Dele think? Would Dele think that Eric had moved on too? That they were now, once and for all, officially done? Eric has been rationalising with himself that as long as he’s single, it at least leaves the option for Dele to come back. He knows how pathetic and desperate that is, knows it will never happen, but it’s the only way he can keep the door from shutting on them forever.

_Press here to let Dele know you’re thinking of him!_ The app says when Eric is idle for long enough that it thinks he needs instructions. An animated finger presses on the screen and Eric worries that it might actually send the notification through, but then then animation stops and the pulsating ring fades away and Eric is left with a white screen again.

He closes the app and presses the palm of his hands into his eyes. _Why he can’t just get over it? Why can’t he just move on?_

Maybe because ever since he’s known Dele, Dele has been his, and now he’s someone else’s and Eric has to smile and pretend to be happy about that. Maybe because he’s lost his best friend and his teammate as well as his… whatever Dele was. _Boyfriend?_ No. But close. Close enough that losing him hurts so much more than losing anyone else.

Maybe because he’s stupidly, irreversibly in love with Dele, and he’s only just realising it. And it’s too late. And Dele is in love with someone else now.

“I still love you,” Eric mumbles out loud, just because he needs to get the words out of his system, needs to free himself of the suffocating weight of them. “I’m in love with you,” he says it again, quieter this time.

_I’m so sorry I didn’t realise it sooner._

\--

On the 1st November, Harry calls Eric’s mobile.

Eric is at home making dinner in his kitchen, humming along to his favourite Portuguese playlist when he sees his phone light up with an incoming call from Harry Kane.

Eric wipes his hands clean on a nearby tea towel and answers the phone, worried that it might be something serious. Harry very rarely ever makes phone calls, especially to Eric.

“Hi, Harry,” Eric answers.

“Hi,” Harry replies brightly. He sounds okay, so Eric relaxes a little. “I’m just passing by your house, I was wondering if you were in?”

Eric blinks for a moment and then looks down the hallway to his front door. “Yeah,” he replies cautiously, “I’m home.”

Harry hesitates for a moment, and Eric worries that maybe he should say something more, but then Harry speaks again. “If you’re not busy I thought we could have a coffee?”

“Okay, yeah, sure.” Eric walks to the front door and takes it off the latch. When he opens the door he sees Harry approaching, smiling at him from behind his black wool coat.

“Hi!” Harry beams when he walks up the steps to Eric’s house. Eric steps aside to let him in and offers to take his coat.

They sit in the kitchen for a while and make small talk. Eric makes coffee and Harry explains that he’s been shopping and to see a few friends who live a few blocks behind Eric.

“That’s nice,” Eric says politely. He hands Harry a mug of hot coffee and then sits down with him at the island counter. Harry looks carefully around the room and then settles back on Eric, smiling softly at him.

“How are you doing?” Harry asks.

Eric’s chest goes tight and he starts to idly turn the mug in his hands. He looks at the marble worktop of his island counter and shrugs.

“Okay,” he replies.

He’s never talked to Harry about Dele and he never intends to. It still haunts him that Harry knows about it and he wonders if Dele has told him anything more, wonders if Dele and Harry talk about it when they’re alone. Eric has previously wondered if it was Harry who told Dele to start dating Ruby.

“Have you spoken to him recently?”

Eric looks up to meet Harry’s gaze. He considers asking ‘who?’ but knows there’s no point. They both know exactly who Harry is referring to.

“No,” Eric answers simply. He keeps turning the mug in his hands, lets the hot liquid warm him through the ceramic.

“Does it help? To not talk to him?”

Eric considers the question, thinks about whether or not it has helped to see Dele in training every day but to not be able to talk to him. To always have him in view, but completely inaccessible. To always have something he wants to say, but no words to say it.

“No,” Eric answers again. He chuckles sadly to himself and sighs. “Harry, why are we talking about this?”

Harry presses his mouth into a sympathetic smile. “Because I know you don’t have anyone else you can talk to about it, and I thought you might want to.”

Eric’s stomach drops and he feels the sting in his eyes. He keeps telling himself he doesn’t need to talk about it, but it’s been three months now and he still can’t really taste food, still doesn’t care about seeing friends, still can’t get to sleep at night without thinking about Dele. So, yeah, maybe he does need to talk about it after all.

“I don’t know what to say,” Eric mumbles. He stills the mug in his hands and holds on to it a little tighter. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“How long have you felt that way about him?” Harry asks gently. Eric shrugs.

“I don’t know.”

He thinks back to when he first met Dele, how he was instantly smitten by Dele’s charm and goofy wave and childish demeanour. Dele had glued himself to Eric’s side until Eric agreed to be his friend. Nobody had ever come into Eric’s life and had _that_ much of an impact before. Eric was usually pretty closed off with a select handful of close friends, but when Dele came along, all of that changed. Eric laughed more in those first few months with Dele than he had all year. With Dele around, the world was a little brighter, a little more colourful.

“A while.”

Harry nods and takes a drink of coffee. He sets the mug down and then asks, “When did you realise it, though?”

“In Russia. After the Croatia match.” Eric stares at the table and lets the memories flood over him. He’d been keeping Russia and the World Cup at arms length because he couldn’t bear to think about it, but now he lets it all back in, remembers the smell of the hotel, the warmth of Dele’s body in his bed, the way the night sky had glittered with stars.

“We’d just got back to the hotel,” Eric continues, his voice low and quiet. “Dele blamed himself for the result. I remember he cried on me and he clung to me and I just… I stood there, holding him while he cried. He was heartbroken. I didn’t know what to do. Seeing him like that… it was the worst thing in the world. We slept in my room that night and when the lights were out he sort of… put his head on my back, between my shoulders. I turned around to him and I-” Eric stops himself, shakes his head and squeezes his eyes shut. He can’t bring himself to say it out loud.

“You wanted to kiss him?” Harry offers. Eric swallows the lump in his throat and nods. “He wanted to kiss you, too.”

“I lost so much time, H,” Eric blurts out, drawing breath a little too quickly. “I kept pushing him away. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was scared.”

“That’s understandable.”

“He told me he was in love with me. He said he needed your help because he was in love with me and he didn’t want to keep fucking it up. He wasn’t fucking it up… _I_ was. He was _in love_ with me, Harry. He actually said that-”

“ _Is_ ,” Harry corrects. Eric looks at him in confusion. “He _is_ in love with you.”  

Eric shakes his head disbelievingly. “Not anymore.”

Harry looks like he wants to argue, but instead he takes a deep breath and places his hand on Eric’s back. “You should speak to him.”

They finish their coffees and Eric busies himself with washing the mugs while Harry gets his coat on.

“Thank you for the coffee,” Harry says when Eric goes to bid him goodbye at the door. Eric shoots him a small, appreciative smile.

“Thanks for, you know… everything.”

“I’m here if you need me. Anytime.” Harry gives Eric one last wave before setting off towards his car.

Eric closes the door softly and leans against it. A shaky, worried sigh escapes him. _What if Harry tells Dele what Eric has said? What if he tells Dele that Eric still isn’t over it? What will Dele think?_

Eric walks into the kitchen and picks up his phone. He remembers Harry’s words. _Is. He is in love with you._

Before he can stop himself, Eric opens TouchRoom. He stares and stares and stares at the white screen, wondering if he’s about to make a huge mistake.

He thinks back to all of his other mistakes. The first one that comes to mind is not kissing Dele the night after they lost to Croatia. It’s what he _didn’t_ do that bothers him the most.

So he does it. He presses his finger to the bottom right of the screen and watches a soft yellow ring pulsate around it.

_Waiting for Dele…_

It takes eighteen long, unbearable seconds, but then the phone vibrates and Eric’s breath catches in his throat.

_I’m here._


	11. Chapter 10

Throughout November, Eric pours all of his energy into training, spending time with his family, and coming to terms with the fact that he doesn’t want to date girls anymore.

He’s not saying never, just... not right now.

The only person he tells this to is Harry Kane. They’re in the dressing room after training one night, just the two of them standing by the bench. Harry’s folding his towel when he asks Eric if he has any more dates lined up.

Eric shakes his head and bites the cap off of his water bottle, chugs back half a pint of water to buy himself some time to think of some kind of explanation, some potential lies he can tell. _He has a second date. He liked one of the girls but she hasn’t called him back. He’s waiting to see if anything progresses with the first one._

But then he stops himself. He’s decided he’s not going to do this anymore, not going to keep lying. It’s just making things more difficult and he’s tired of fighting himself about what he does and doesn’t want.

“No,” he says. “I don’t think I want to date anymore.”

Harry nods, still focused on neatly folding his towels. Eric watches him silently and pushes himself to continue, to just _say it out loud._ He looks around the room one more time, just to check that they completely alone and that the doors are closed.

“I don’t want to date girls,” he says quietly, and then adds, “not right now, anyway.”

Harry stops folding his towel. He turns and looks at Eric, takes a second to consider if Eric is being serious. Eric looks back at him and chews the inside of his mouth nervously.

“Good,” Harry says slowly. He nods and says it again, smiling a little. “That’s good.”

Eric lets out the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. It feels good to finally just tell someone he doesn’t want to go on these dates anymore.

\--

With the games and the training schedules and sorting out Christmas plans, Eric is too busy to even think about dating anyway. He cancels the date that Chris had set up for the end of November and flies out to Portugal for the weekend instead.

He meets up with his close friends on the first night and they all go for dinner together. Not a single one asks him about his love life, but Eric gets drunk enough that he brings it up anyway.

“I fell in love with someone,” Eric says, swilling his wine. He’s sitting at a large table in this small, low-lit Portuguese restaurant. It’s somewhere close to midnight. Candles flicker around him and everyone leans in, curious about the sudden confession. “I shouldn’t have, and I try- tried, not to. I tried not to. But I did anyway.”

“Someone in London?”

“In Russia, actually,” Eric says, shaking his head. “It happened in Russia.”

“What happened?” Issie asks, leaning in and placing a gentle hand on his knee.

“Stupid, really,” Eric sighs. His head is swimming with the alcohol and he’s picturing Dele in his hotel room, crying after Croatia. “I was an idiot. Didn’t know what I wanted, didn’t know… anything.” He pictures Dele in his hotel room, asleep in his bed when Eric comes back with breakfast food for him. _Diet, stop talking about eggs._ “Didn’t say, just, anything.”

Issie frowns at him. “What?”

“I didn’t say how I felt,” Eric repeats, sighing heavily. He pictures Dele in his hotel room, trying to turn the TV on even though it’s not plugged in. _I thought this was what you wanted,_ Dele’s voice says. “I should have just…” He pictures Dele closing the distance between them. Dele’s mouth on his. _When I come back, can I kiss you again?_

“I love him.”

Issie tightens her grip on Eric’s knee and everyone seems to look at him a little more intensely. Eric feels his heart leap into his throat. He doesn’t know what he just said but he knows he was thinking about Dele and the hotel room and Dele kissing him.

“Eric,” Issie says softly. “Are you talking about Dele?”

_Oh._

Eric freezes in his seat. He can’t breathe.

“Eric?”

He can’t see straight, can’t think straight. All he can hear are Dele’s words, the words he’s been repeating back to himself every night since he first heard them. _I’ve been fucking this up from day one, Eric, and I needed to not fuck it up anymore. I’m in love with you and I needed his help._

Eric nods. “I’m in love with him,” he says. The confession spills out of him before he can contain it. “And I need your help, because I keep fucking it up, and I need to not fuck it up anymore.”

Issie takes Eric’s hand in her own and squeezes it. He looks at her and she smiles reassuringly at him. His other friends shuffle forward too. “Start from the beginning,” Issie says.

\--

When Eric gets back to London on December 1st, he texts Dele and asks him how his new clothing line is coming along. Dele starts excitedly babbling on about his new caps and the designs he’s working on right now and how he already has a thousand and one ideas for hoodies which “will be a bit like Jesse’s but cooler”.

They’ve somehow found themselves back on speaking terms, but it’s strictly platonic. They joke around and Dele still tries to nutmeg him at every opportunity, but Dele is very much still with his girlfriend and Eric is still very much trying to move on, so apart from the occasional slip up when Eric is feeling particularly lonely, they haven’t used TouchRoom and they haven’t made out in any hotel rooms and they haven’t spent any time alone together.  

Eric tells himself that it’s easier this way, that as long as they’re always surrounded by other people and as long as Eric busies himself with other aspects of his life, it will all be okay. He still misses Dele every moment of every day, but the pain is a bit duller now, and he’s getting used to it.

They end up texting back and forth for a while, mostly about Leo Fortis but also about Jesse and Marcus and Poch’s new training schedules and who is going to be responsible for hosting the Spurs Christmas Shindig this year. They both agree it should be Harry, as he has the biggest house and is the most reliable at organising these sorts of things.

Without even realising it, Eric finds himself texting Dele until almost one in the morning. He’s lying in bed on his side, his suitcase still unopened and abandoned on the floor, his lamp on but dimmed in front of him. He’s holding his phone in his hands and laughing at how ridiculous Dele gets when he’s tired. He’s trying to convince Eric that Gareth Southgate runs a Harry Kane fan account on Instagram, and that Harry knows about it but doesn’t know how to confront Gareth.  

It feels like the old them. They’re a hundred, maybe two hundred messages into this silly conversation when Eric feels like he might pass out from exhaustion. He doesn’t want to fall asleep without saying goodbye, so at 1:10am, he finally wraps up the conversation.

**No I think you’re right about Gaz. I can totally see him doing that.**

**Anyway I’m so tired now lol. Been up since 6am. I’ll catch you in training tomorrow. Goodnight Delboy.**

_I’m telling u its true lol_

_Ok!! Night diet see u tomorrow x_

Eric stares at the message for a few minutes, feels his chest swell at the nickname and the kiss and even the double exclamation marks. It’s so… Dele.

It’s so them _._

\--

The next morning, Eric zips himself up into his warmest training gear, snood included, and forces himself to head out to the training grounds. It’s absolutely freezing outside and he can’t help but crave the warm, breezy evenings he had in Portugal.

Harry jogs up behind him on the pitch and hands him a bib. “Over 24 vs under 24,” he says, smiling even though he’s shivering. He’s wearing a bib too. Eric takes it and frowns. He really doesn’t appreciate that he’s now part of the Spurs Elders.

Out of nowhere, Eric feels something push his feet apart. He almost falls over when a football rolls through.

Dele laughs maniacally as he runs in front of Eric and collects the ball. Eric sighs and pulls the bib on. It’s not even 9am and Dele has already nutmegged him twice.

“You’re getting weak, Diet!” Dele shouts gleefully as he sprints off ahead with the rest of the Spurs Youngsters.

Despite having Harry Kane and Mousa Dembele and Christian Eriksen, the elders somehow fall short to Dele and Winks’ tricks. The youngsters win 4-3 and parade their victory around the pitch while Eric and Harry huddle at the side for warmth, just glad the match is over so that they can finally go inside.

Eric watches Dele running around on the other side of the pitch with Winks on his back and wonders where on earth he gets that sort of energy from. He’d spent the whole match running rings around Eric, dancing at his feet and beaming at him when he won the ball. Eric had tried to keep up with him, to mark him, but Dele was just too fast.

“You two seem happier,” Harry comments idly. He takes a swig from his water bottle and nods across the pitch to Dele, as if Eric didn’t know who he was talking about. “You’re talking more.”

“Yeah,” Eric says. He smiles, but there’s a wariness to it. It’s still a fragile subject and Eric still doesn’t really know what he’s doing.

“I’m glad. You seem happier.”

Eric can’t help but frown a little in confusion when he looks at Harry. _Does_ he seem happier? _Is_ he happier?

He thinks back to his conversation with Dele last night at 1am, about Gareth running the secret Harry Kane fan account. It had made him smile, made him laugh. It felt like one of the old conversations. Even if at the end of it Dele would be going to bed with Ruby and Eric would be going to bed alone, at least he had _something._ At least some degree of friendship had been salvaged from all of this.  

“Yeah,” Eric replies. He’s not sure if he means it or not, not sure if he _is_ happier, but he’s too cold and too tired to think about it.

He looks back out across the pitch at Dele and Winks. Dele is looking back at him. He does his goofy wave and Eric grins widely at him.

“You two will be the death of me,” Harry laughs, shaking his head. He sets off towards the dressing rooms and Eric follows him, still pondering the question of whether or not he’s happy.

Inside, there’s some heated discussion about who is going to host the Spurs Christmas Shindig. Jan is insisting that it should be someone with a place in central or north London, so that it’s quicker and easier to get home after. Harry’s house is a little way out and Jan is complaining about how long the taxi journey will take.

Eric leaves them all to bicker about it while he gets changed.

“So it’s settled then?” Christian says a few minutes later when Eric is about to head out of the dressing room and into the gym. He stops just a little behind Eric and looks at him expectantly.

“What is?” Eric asks, confused. Everyone is looking at him.

“We’re having the party at your house,” Dele explains, his elbow coming to rest on Winks’ shoulder as he leans against him.  

“You live pretty much in the middle of everyone,” Jan says.

“And you don’t have a wife or a girlfriend or kids, so-” Mousa adds.

“You don’t to, though,” Harry politely interrupts. Eric shoots him a grateful look but shakes his head and smiles.

“It’s fine, we can do it at my place,” he says. There’s a happy murmur from the group and Christian claps him on the back, tells him he’s “a brilliant man with a big heart”, which Eric thinks is a _little_ over the top, but he takes it anyway.

“We were thinking this weekend?” Dele says, walking with Eric out of the dressing room. “Before everyone flies out for Christmas. What do you think?”

“I can do this weekend, that’s fine. I’ll text everyone with details once I’ve got everything sorted. It will probably be on Saturday night.”

“Cool, thanks Diet.” Dele ruffles Eric’s hair and grins at him. Eric swats him away but his arm somehow comes to rest around Dele’s shoulders in the process. He feels Dele lean into him a little, but then Winks runs up behind them and jumps on Dele, pushing him forward and out of Eric’s reach.

They play fight for a moment but then Winks gets away and jogs on ahead, turning to wave at them both before he reaches the end of the corridor. Dele falls back in step with Eric and smiles apologetically at him.

Eric feels a sharp pain in his chest. He’s thinking about the party and whether or not he’s supposed to allow plus ones.

“You can bring your girlfriend, if you want,” he says suddenly. He rationalises that it’s the right thing to do, to let Dele bring his girlfriend, to finally meet her. It will be nice, he tells himself. It will be fine.

“Oh,” Dele says, clearly taken aback. He nods and opens his mouth a few times, but never quite finds the words. “Okay,” he says eventually. “Cool.”

“Cool,” Eric replies. He swallows thickly and tries to ignore the sinking sensation in his stomach.

\--

Two days before the Spurs Christmas Shindig, Eric figures he should go out and get supplies. His apartment has plenty of alcohol but it’s all expensive wine that, quite frankly, he doesn’t want his teammates going anywhere near _._

Plus, Dele hates wine anyway.

**What do you want to drink this weekend?**

Eric sends the message via WhatsApp while he’s strolling down the drinks aisle at Waitrose. He pulls his cap low over his head and leans forward on the handle bar of his trolley, waiting for Dele to reply.

 _Anything lol. Vodka??_ Dele replies in under thirty seconds.

**Cool. Anything else?**

Eric grabs what looks like a fancy-ish bottle of vodka, and then another one just to be safe. He also picks up a bottle of gin, an expensive bottle of dark rum, and three crates of beer.

_I know its lame lol but can u get me some of them alcopops? The sweet ones_

Eric chuckles to himself and just about resists rolling his eyes. Dele has always loved those sugary alcopops but he hates anyone knowing about it.

**Like the Smirnoff Ice?**

_Yeah that! Thanks diet :)_

Eric throws a box of Smirnoff Ice in the trolley and follows it with a box of orange Bacardi Breezers. He can’t believe he was even considering bringing out the expensive Italian wines from his cellar.

\--

Jan comes over later that evening and Eric cooks for him.

It’s been a while since Eric invited anyone else to his house and Jan seems grateful for the company. His wife and children are visiting family in The Netherlands and he insists he’s just wandering around uselessly at home until they get back. Eric took pity on him after hearing that his only plans for the evening were “watering the plants” and “restocking the spice rack”.

Jan helps with the food prep in the kitchen and doesn’t need to be told what to do. Eric is in the middle of explaining what basting means when Jan interrupts him with a polite laugh and tells him he knows what basting means _._

Eric blushes and apologises, explains that he’s used to having Dele in the kitchen and Dele once stirred pasta with a spatula.

Jan looks at him like he doesn’t believe him, but Eric just nods and Jan shakes his head in disbelief.

“How is he, anyway?”

“Dele?” Eric asks, his throat constricting. “He’s fine, I think?”

He has no reason to believe that Jan knows anything, but he still can’t help but tense up a little whenever Dele gets brought up in conversation.

“You two had a falling out?” Jan asks, keeping his eyes on the chicken thighs that he’s basting.

Eric opens the oven door and checks the temperature. _Why is Jan asking him this?_ He takes out an oven dish and sets it down next to Jan for the chicken.

“Uhm, no?” Eric answers. Jan looks sideways at him.

“No?” He says, his voice a little high pitched because of his accent. “You two don’t seem to talk so much anymore.”

“Well, he’s got his girlfriend now, doesn’t he?” Eric replies, hiding behind his lighthearted tone and fake smile. Jan furrows his eyebrows and shakes his head, still clearly confused.

“I thought they were broken up?”

“Are they?” Eric asks a little too quickly. He stares at Jan while Jan scratches his head and tries to remember.

“Maybe I got it wrong. I thought Sonny said he heard Dele arguing with Ruby on the phone and Dele said something about breaking up. Maybe I am wrong, though?”

“Oh,” Eric says, “I didn’t know about that. Maybe.” He looks at the oven dish and wonders where it came from, how it got there. _Dele and Ruby broke up?_

Jan moves around the kitchen and finishes preparing the food while Eric stands in one spot and stares at the oven dish, mind running through countless questions he wants to ask Jan. _When did Sonny overhear this? When did Sonny tell you? Are you sure? Why would they break up? Why hasn’t Dele told me? Why hasn’t anyone told me?_

“Shall we put the food in?” Jan asks, shaking Eric out of his daze.

“Hm? Yes,” Eric laughs. He apologises, says he was off in his own little world for a moment.

Jan grins at him and waits for Eric to open the oven door so he can put the dish inside.

\--

Eric takes a long, deep breath. He never realised how absolute sneaky Jan Vertonghen could be. Never realised how utterly smart and deceptive he is.

Eric has been over the whole scenario, looked at it from every angle, but he still can’t quite figure out what he should do about it. Jan has pushed him into a corner and there’s no way out.

“I think you’ve won,” Eric grumbles, frowning down at the chessboard that sits on the coffee table between him and Jan. “I’m going to lose my queen, aren’t I?”

Jan shakes his head defiantly. “No, see.” He picks up one of Eric’s pieces and shows him where to move it. “Do this, and then I do this, then you do this, see? Now you only lose this.”

Eric takes another long, deep breath.

“I like you,” Eric says matter-of-factly. He moves the piece that Jan recommended and buys himself a few more minutes in the game. He’s usually much better than this at chess, but tonight he just doesn’t seem to be able to concentrate.

He pulls back a little to check his phone under the table.

_Did u lose ur queen?_

**No, she’s safe. We’re all good.**

_Good!! Keep me updated_

Eric clears his throat and puts his phone away in his pocket. Dele text him during dinner asking what he was up to, and Eric told himself he wouldn’t reply, but then Jan put on some boring documentary and Eric got weak and wanted Dele’s attention. They’ve now been talking for almost an hour. About dinner with Jan, about training today, about Dele nutmegging Eric twice, about the new show Dele is watching on Netflix, and now about Eric’s game of chess.

“See,” Jan says. He rests his elbows on the coffee table and scratches the corner of his mouth with his thumb. “You see? Now you’re safe.”

“Now I can do _this_ ,” Eric smirks, quickly moving his bishop and taking out Jan’s last knight.

“This is what I get for helping you?” Jan tuts and shuffles closer to the table. “Okay, Dier, no more help for you.”

Eric laughs at him and looks down at his phone again.

**I took his knight**

_I wish u would come back from war lol. Im worried for u._

Jan sticks to his word. He offers no more help and defeats Eric in under fifteen minutes. It’s a clean defeat that Eric really can’t argue with, so instead he shakes hands with Jan and tells him he deserved the win.

They clear up the dishes together and Jan insists he should probably get home before the rain gets any worse. Eric gives him a quick hug, thanks him for coming, and sees him out the door.

“See you at the weekend!” Jan says brightly, waving from the doorstep. “I think it will be good this year.”

“It’s good every year,” Eric laughs. He watches Jan set off towards his car and then closes the door behind him.

Inside, Eric pads back to the living room, settles into the sofa, and pulls out his phone. He has a few missed messages and his heart flutters when he sees his notification center overflowing with Dele’s name.

_Did u win?_

_Diet?_

_Is Jan still there?_

_Diet did u die at war?_

_Diet what happened? Are u 2 fighting about the chess?_

_This show is good u should watch it_

_Eric where r u im so bored_

**Sorry, I was doing the dishes and saying bye to Jan! No I didn’t win :(**

_Oh :(_

Eric closes WhatsApp and stares at his phone background for a few seconds. It’s a photo of the view from his balcony in Portugal. It used to be him and Dele in Russia, grinning goofily at the camera in front of the Kremlin.

He opens WhatsApp again. Dele is still set to ‘online’. It comes up that Dele is writing something, but then he deletes it and goes quiet.

Eric chews the inside of his mouth.

**Are you bringing Ruby this weekend?**

_No_

Eric types out ‘Good’ and then deletes it. He types out ‘Why?’ and then deletes that, too. He doesn’t know if Dele is still with Ruby, doesn’t know if he’s allowed to ask or not, if it’s even any of his business anymore.

**Ok, cool**

Eric sends the message and it comes up instantly as read. Dele starts typing.

_Cool :)_

**Goodnight Dele, see you at the weekend.**

_Looking forward to it. Night Eric x_


	12. Chapter 11

The Spurs Christmas Shindig is scheduled for the first weekend in December. Eric stocks his house with festive paper cups, straws, streamers, and an abundance of tacky Christmas decorations that Eric personally hates but knows the rest of the team will appreciate. He even buys one of those cans of fake snow and sprays his windows, tracing a tiny #COYS into the snow with his finger. 

The night before the party, he cleans the house top to bottom, moves his most expensive bottles of wine into the cellar, restocks the wood burner, and hides the photo of him and Dele that he has on his bedside table. 

It’s the photo of the two of them about the board the plane to Marseille for the 2016 Euros. Dele printed it off for his birthday in 2017 and shoved it in Eric’s birthday card as a sort of joke gift. “Now u can frame it!” he’d written in the card. And Eric had. He’d framed it two days later and it’s been on his bedside table ever since. 

Eric picks up the photo and looks at it. They’re both smiling at the camera and Eric has his arm slung around Dele’s shoulders. He remembers the photo being taken, the way the photographer had called out “Dele, Eric! Give us a smile, boys!” 

As if on cue, Eric’s phone vibrates in his pocket. He carefully places the framed photo under his bed and sits down on the floor, stretching out his legs in front of him and leaning his back against the bed frame. 

_ R we all wearing christmas jumpers?? x _

Eric is 100% sure Dele doesn’t own a single Christmas jumper aside from the Spurs one they were all given for the Christmas promotional videos.

**You can wear whatever you want :)**

_ Will everyone else wear christmas jumpers? _

**I didn’t ask**

_ Poor party planning diet _

Eric rolls his eyes and puts his phone away when Dele’s status turns from ‘Online’ to ‘Last seen’. He sits still for a few minutes, staring out of the window in front of him and letting his mind drift back to the World Cup. It’s only 4:30pm, but it’s already completely dark outside. He misses the summer.

In one swift motion, Eric reaches behind himself and under the bed, pulling out the framed photo. He looks at it and considers putting it back on the bedside table, but he’s worried that someone might come in his room and see it. It’s not like it’s a provocative photo, it’s just that he has it next to his  _ bed _ . Eric can’t imagine anyone else having a photo of themselves and their teammate on their bedside table.

He gets up and puts it on the dresser instead, next to a houseplant and his most recent Man of the Match trophy. 

Downstairs, Eric straightens the cushions on the sofa and calls his sister in Portugal. They talk on the phone while Eric sits by the window and doodles patterns in the fake snow. He draws a football while she talks about her fiancé and their latest wedding plans. 

“There’s still room for a plus one!” His sister says enthusiastically. Her wedding is in August and she’s saved Eric a plus one in case he decides he wants to bring someone, even though Eric has told her ten times already that he’ll be coming alone. 

“Cool. Can I bring Harry Kane?” Eric asks, deadpan. He expects a light scolding, but instead his sister just laughs happily. 

“You can bring any of your teammates, if you want to.” 

Eric’s finger freezes against the glass. Previously, Eric had joked about bringing a teammate or Pochettino and his sister had gotten annoyed about it. That was the only reason he’d done it again. So he’s surprised when she doesn’t react in the same way. 

“Eric?” 

“Hm?” 

“Nevermind. Listen, when are you coming to see us for Christmas?”

“Boxing Day,” Eric says, glad for the change in subject.

“What are you doing Christmas Day? You know mum is here with us Christmas Day, right?” 

“I know.”

“So what are you doing?” 

“I’m not sure yet,” Eric sighs. Another conversation they’ve had ten times already. He’s already told his family he’ll meet them in Portugal on Boxing Day and then stay until the New Year, so he doesn’t see what the problem is.

“Eric, just come here for Christmas.” 

They don’t have the room. His sister and her fiancé are already hosting Eric’s parents, Eric’s brother, and Eric’s brother’s dogs. At the very best, Eric would have to stay on the sofa or get a hotel. He would much rather be in his own home on Christmas Day and just fly out Boxing Day. Apparently this decision hasn’t gone down well with Eric’s family, though, as he now gets hassled about it every time he calls them up. 

“I’ll think about it,” Eric says after fifteen minutes when it’s still the only topic of conversation. His sister sounds annoyed but she relents anyway, moving on to ask Eric about his latest football matches. 

The phone calls goes on for another thirty minutes when Eric starts talking about training and the matches and the season so far. Eventually, though, they wrap up the conversation and Eric promises to call again the following week. 

As soon as he hangs up the phone, he sees three new messages from Dele. 

_ Have u started watching that show yet? Diet you’ll like it  _

_ I just saw a tweet that said that mint is cold spicy and its changed my life lol  _

_ You ignoring me cause I said u suck at party planning? _

Eric kicks back on his sofa and clicks the TV on. Some BBC travel show starts playing but Eric isn’t paying attention. 

**No lol sorry I was on the phone to my sister**

Dele sees the message and replies within a few seconds. 

_ How is she?? _

**She’s good! Just talking about her wedding and Christmas**

_ She getting married in summer next year right? _

**Yeah**

Eric pauses and chews his bottom lip for a moment. Dele has seen the message but isn’t typing anything, so Eric quickly continues. 

**She wants me to bring someone**

_ Who?? _

**Anyone. She thinks I’m lonely**

_ Who are u going to take? _

**I was thinking Harry Kane**

_ Shut up diet _

Eric smiles at the reply before he can stop himself. He pulls his knees up to his chest and glances at the TV. It’s been a while since he had the patience and attention span to actually sit and watch something, but he feels like he might be in the mood for a new show. 

**What’s this new show you want me to watch?**

Dele starts typing immediately. 

\--

Jan is the first to arrive. He’s forty minutes early and turns up wearing a smart grey jumper, black skinny jeans, and blindingly white trainers. When he knocks on the door, Eric is still in the process of cooking the party food so he has to shout for Jan to let himself in.

“Hi!” Jan calls out as he closes the door behind himself. Eric wipes his hands on a tea towel and and walks into the hallway.

“You’re early,” Eric smiles, but hugs him all the same. Jan attempts to look surprised but Eric can see straight through him. It’s quite clear Jan has come over thirty minutes early to keep Eric company. 

“I am?” Jan asks, feigning confusion. He’s holding a bottle of wine that only Jan and Eric drink and he changes the subject by offering to help with the cooking.

They bake homemade sausage rolls together and sing along to  _ Fairytale of New York  _ when it comes on over the sound system. Eric pours them both of glass of the expensive red wine and they sit at the kitchen table for a few minutes, chatting about Jan’s wife and kids and their plans to go to Lapland next year so that Jan’s daughter can meet Santa.

Once the final batch of sausage rolls and mince pies are out the oven, they set all the food out on a table in the living room and curl up on the sofa with a second glass of wine. 

“Hey, nice snow,” Jan points out, nodding at the windows.

“Thanks,” Eric smiles.

Harry and Lamela arrive next, both knocking on the door at 8pm on the dot. Eric and Jan are halfway through their second glass of red wine, so they’re in great spirits when they open the door to Harry Kane in a santa hat and Lamela in a reindeer Christmas jumper. 

“I didn’t know about the Christmas jumper rule,” Harry says apologetically when he walks into Eric’s house and hugs him. He’s wearing grey jeans and a navy shirt with the sleeves rolled up. 

“Oh, there wasn’t one,” Eric chuckles. He moves to give Lamela a quick hug and closes the door. 

“Dele said we had to wear Christmas jumpers,” Lamela says, sighing. 

Eric leads them into the living room and gives Lamela a quick house tour while Harry and Jan pick at the food and make more drinks. 

Winks arrives a little after 8pm, followed by Lucas, Sonny, Gaz, Hugo, and Trippier. The living room quickly fills up with Eric’s teammates and so far Lamela is the only person to have turned up in a Christmas jumper. 

At 8:30pm, Eric checks his phone for the hundredth time. 

**You’re late**

_ Im getting ready!! Leaving in a min _

Eric stuffs his phone back in his pocket and joins in the conversation with Winks and Trippier about their New Year’s Eve plans.

Mousa arrives at 8:40pm. Davies and Toby at 8:45pm. 

Every time there’s a knock at the door, Eric rushes to answer it. He happily greets whoever is standing on the other side, but he can’t help the small sense of disappointment that settles in his stomach every time it isn’t Dele. 

So far, everyone has come alone, which Eric is kind of grateful for. In his experience, having just a few partners is awkward because they feel they have to talk to each other, even if they have nothing in common. Eric guesses word must have gotten around about keeping it casual this year and coming alone. He’s not sure who first suggested it, but he has a sneaking suspicion it might have been Harry Kane.

Eric is on his third glass of wine, sitting on the arm of his sofa with Harry, Davies, and Jan standing around him. They’re all discussing the implications of Brexit on Wales and on football in general. Eric is sort of nodding along but he has no clue what they’re saying or  _ why  _ they even want to talk about this. 

Behind him, Eric overhears Winks and Trippier discussing the possibility of shots. He turns around and offers to go get the bottle of tequila, but then the doorbell rings and Eric stops mid-sentence and jumps up to answer it. He thinks for  _ sure  _ this must be Dele. 

It isn’t. It’s Eriksen. Eric smiles politely at him and offers to take his coat. 

“Is everyone here?” Sonny asks when Christian walks into the living room and greets everyone warmly. Eric follows him in but hangs back a little, hovering in the doorway so that he can hear if anyone else knocks on the door.

“No, Dele isn’t here,” Jan points out. Eric checks his phone again but has no new messages. He opens the WhatsApp chat but Dele hasn’t been online for over half an hour. 

“Oh, cute,” Winks says suddenly, pointing at something above Eric. Eric looks up from his phone, confused, and finds mistletoe hanging from the doorway. He rolls his eyes and looks around for the culprit. 

Harry Kane glances at him and shrugs innocently.  

“I’m not sure it’s  _ that _ sort of party,” Eric mumbles, evoking a laugh out of Winks and Trippier.  

“For any friends you might have over at Christmas,” Harry replies as he walks over to Eric, carefully pushing past Davies and Lamela. Eric waits until Harry is standing next to him.

“I don’t think this will help,” Eric says quietly, “but thanks anyway.” 

“Where is he?” Harry asks. He keeps his eyes on the room and Eric does the same. In front of them, Winks and Trippier are now trying to involve everyone in a Christmas dance off. Only Jan and Sonny seem interested in joining in. Eric watches from the doorway as Winks tries and fails to break dance.

“Late, I guess,” Eric says eventually. He laughs fondly when Winks falls in a heap to the floor. ”He said he was leaving soon but that was at 8:30.” 

“He’ll be here,” Harry says, and as if on cue, the doorbell rings. Eric steps backwards into the hallway and walks over to the front door, leaving Harry in the living room. 

The door swings open to reveal Dele standing on Eric’s front step, smiling softly and looking a little windswept. He’s wearing his burgundy jumper - the one Eric said he liked in that GQ video - and ripped black designer jeans. 

“Sorry I’m late,” Dele says, stepping into Eric’s house. Eric is still holding his glass of wine so he goes to hug him with one arm, but Dele takes him by surprise and wraps both of his arms around Eric’s middle. They hold on to each other for a moment. Eric shuffles slightly to place his wine glass down and then puts one hand on Dele’s lower back and the other across Dele’s shoulder, pulls him in properly. It’s the first time they’ve hugged in months and Eric swears he can feel Dele’s heartbeat against his chest.  

Dele buries his face into Eric’s shoulder. He’s warm and soft and smells of the aftershave that he’s worn for years now. It’s  _ his  _ smell and Eric knows he will never be able to associate it with anyone else. It’s just… it’s  _ Dele.  _

Dele’s hands relax a little, finding the hem of Eric’s jumper. He tugs at it, and Eric is suddenly taken back to Russia, to the night after the Croatia defeat when they were lying in bed in the darkness and Dele was tugging on Eric’s shirt, coaxing him into turning around.

“Hey, Del!” Jan shouts suddenly, stepping past Harry and into the hallway. Eric quickly breaks away from the embrace and Dele jumps back into his normal, cheerful self. 

“Jan the man,” Dele says excitedly, holding out his hand so that they can do their fast-paced, ridiculous handshake. Jan hugs him and heads off into the kitchen, looking for more alcohol. 

“Oh, here he is, the superstar,” Dele says when Harry turns and grins at him. 

“Del,” Harry greets warmly. They share a quick hug before Dele moves into the living room to properly greet everyone. 

\--

It takes maybe an hour at most before everyone is fully drunk, Harry Kane included. 

Trippier and Harry are in the corner of the room, drinking gin and having a heated debate about the best and worst children’s TV shows; Jan, Ben, Lamela, Sonny, and Lucas are playing a drinking version of Uno; Mousa is eating the buffet clean; and Dele and Winks are messing around with the music that is playing over Eric’s sound system, challenging each other to rap battles.

Eric has lost count of how many drinks he’s had, but he thinks it might be around eight or nine. Either way, his glass is empty again, so he stumbles towards the kitchen to make himself a drink of whatever is left. 

In the kitchen, Toby, Hugo, and Gaz are arguing about the best wines and whether they come from Italy or France. They seem to be in the middle of a full tasting session, judging by how many glasses of wine they have in front of them. Eric nods a polite hello and quickly makes a gin and tonic.

When he heads back towards the living room, he hangs around in the doorway again, watching his teammates descend into a drunken mess. He smiles happily at them all and feels a warmth in his chest when Harry and Trippier look over at him and raise their glasses. Eric raises his too and takes a long drink. 

“Hey Diet, I love the snow on the windows!” Dele says, suddenly appearing at Eric’s side. Eric looks at him and doesn’t say anything. Dele’s face is flushed from the alcohol, his eyes wide and excited. He grins at Eric and Eric just stares at him, wondering why everything except for Dele is going a little wavy. “You okay?” 

“Drunk,” Eric mumbles, smiling lazily. Dele grins harder and knocks his glass against Eric’s. 

“Cheers to that.” 

“Del-” Eric begins. He doesn’t know what he’s going to say, but it doesn’t matter, because Winks bounds over and interrupts them anyway. He puts one hand on Dele’s shoulder and then glances up.

“Aw, it would be you two, wouldn’t it?” Winks laughs. Eric has no idea what he’s talking about until he sees Dele look up at the doorway. 

_ Oh,  _ Eric thinks,  _ the mistletoe.  _

“Go on, have a smooch,” Winks continues, giggling. Dele shoves him lightly and rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t move. He glances at Eric and Eric can see that he’s blushing. 

“Oh ref, REF!” Jan shouts, getting the attention of the entire room, possibly even the entire street. 

Apparently the Uno game has gotten a little out of hand because Lucas is accusing Lamela of cheating and Ben was supposed to do two shots but he’s only done one. Harry steps in - ever the default referee - and settles the argument. He tells Ben to do his second shot and warns Lamela about the consequences of cheating in Uno.

Winks rushes over to try and settle the commotion, leaving Eric and Dele in the doorway. 

Eric can feel Dele’s eyes on him, can feel Dele’s fingers brushing his own.  _ Is Dele trying to hold my hand?  _ Eric thinks. He’s too drunk for this, he can’t make sense of it. Dele has a girlfriend, so why is he looking at Eric right now like he’s expecting something? Why is he trying to lace his fingers with Eric’s like they’re not currently standing in a room with all of their teammates? 

Why does Eric still have no idea what Dele actually wants? 

He’s too drunk for this. 

“Don’t,” Eric mutters, and he leaves Dele in the doorway and walks over to the rowdy Uno match where the commotion is getting louder. 

Ben now has to do thirty push ups,  _ shirtless _ , according to Jan, because he broke the rules and wouldn’t accept his previous forfeit.

Eric crouches down next to Jan and puts his hands on Jan’s shoulder, pretending to consider both sides of the argument when Ben talks at him about Jan not doing his shots of tequila earlier.

“Right, Ben, push ups, now,” Eric instructs. “This is my house and these are my rules. I won’t have Uno disrespected like this.” 

Ben starts to half-heartedly complain - even though he’s already putting off his shirt - but Eric stops paying attention to him. He’s glances back at the doorway and is a little surprised to see Harry and Dele talking quietly, away from the crowd. Dele shakes his head and frowns, laughs sadly at himself. Harry says something that makes Dele shrug. Eric tries to make out their conversation, but Toby and Hugo are pushing past them now to get into the living room and they completely block Eric’s view of the scene.

When they do finally move, Eric looks back up to see Dele staring at him. They make eye contact for a second before Dele slips away into the kitchen, his expression unreadable through Eric’s drunken haze. 

Eric watches Ben do thirty shirtless pushups and bitterly swallows back the rest of his gin and tonic. 

\--

Somewhere around half one in the morning, the Spurs Christmas Shindig comes to an end. Most people have ordered taxis, are in the the process of ordering a taxi, or are trying to figure out who should be sharing with who.

While Jan takes over the taxi situation, Eric walks through his living room and picks up stray plastic cups. 

Winks is asleep on the sofa, curled up with one of Eric’s cushions clutched tightly to his chest. He’s snoring a little and Eric has to shake his foot to wake him up.

“It’s time to go,” Eric explains when Winks opens his eyes and blinks a few times, looking around the room with some degree of confusion. 

In the hallway, everyone is shrugging coats back on and mumbling tired, drunken goodbyes. Toby and Jan are still in full party mode, so their taxi is heading straight to the nearest bar. Lamela says he’ll join them and Winks tries to secure a place in the party taxi too, but Eric steps in and insists that someone needs to take Winks home or else he’ll just fall asleep in the bar. 

Trippier walks up to Eric and gives him a reassuring nod. “It’s alright, mate, I’ll make sure this kid gets home.”

Eric pulls Winks into a hug and ruffles his hair. He’s by far the most wasted and he can barely stand up straight.

“Get home safe, okay?” Eric says, laughing a little when Winks nods pathetically, his eyes slipping shut. “Text me when you’re home, if you remember.” 

“Thanks, Eric,” Winks mumbles. “Are you staying here?” 

Eric laughs again. “Yes, I live here.” He helps Winks into his coat while Trippier disappears to go and say goodbye to whoever is still in the kitchen.  

“Is Dele staying?” Winks asks innocently. Eric tenses and looks up, but nobody seems to have overheard the question. Thankfully, everyone is distracted by Jan, who is shouting something about a boat party.

“No,” Eric says, brushing off the question and zipping up Winks’ coat for him.

“Oh,” Winks shrugs. He places one hand confidently on Eric’s chest and fixes him with a serious expression, even though he’s swaying on the spot. “Listen, Eric. Dele loves you ‘n, ‘n you love him, yeah?” 

“Your taxi is here,” Eric replies hurriedly. He gently ushers Winks towards the front door and waits for Trippier. Winks starts to say something, but Eric shakes his head and pats him on the back. “You’re drunk, Winks. Get home safely, okay?” Eric says, and he hands Winks over to Trippier before heading off into the kitchen. 

“Oh, no, H, they go in there, that bit,” Dele is saying when Eric walks into the kitchen with twenty or so discarded paper cups. He places them on the counter and watches as Dele shows Harry where to put the plates in the dishwasher. 

Eric doesn’t know at what point Dele learned to use his dishwasher, or learned where to put certain items, but apparently he did because he’s rolling his eyes and re-organising the wine glasses so that they’re standing up straight. Eric briefly wonders if he’s hallucinating.  

“They’ll break otherwise,” Dele says quietly, standing up and turning away from the dishwasher. When he sees Eric, he pauses, opens his mouth to say something, and then just presses his mouth into a polite smile instead. 

“Everyone is leaving,” Eric says matter-of-factly. Dele’s smile falters and Eric realises that his tone might have been a little cold. “I’m not saying you have to…” Eric trails off. Harry is in the kitchen too and he’s loading dishes and pretending not to listen, but Eric just doesn’t want to have this conversation in front of him.

“We’ll help you clean up first,” Dele says quickly.

Eric, Harry, and Dele begin to declutter the kitchen while everyone else prepares to leave. Eric has to occasionally nip into the hallway to say goodbye to his guests, but mostly they just filter out until it’s only Ben Davies left. 

Ben walks into the kitchen, thanks Eric for a wonderful evening, and asks Harry and Dele if they want to share his taxi. Eric tells them to go, insists he can finish the cleaning as there really isn’t much left to do anyway.

Harry nods and agrees to share the taxi. Dele doesn’t say anything. He just hesitates by the dishwasher and busies himself with drying glasses. 

“Del?” Harry says, shooting Dele a questioning glance as he shrugs on his coat. Dele leans against the counter and mumbles something about staying to help finish tidy up. 

Harry seems to take the hint and heads out with Ben, giving Eric one last reassuring smile on his way out of the kitchen. “Thanks for hosting, Eric. See you next week.” 

“Sure, thanks guys. See you next week.” Eric walks with them into the hallway and waves them off before nervously heading back into the kitchen. 

Dele is still drying glasses silently, so Eric hovers awkwardly by the island counter. As he looks at the stools, he realises that this is where they were sitting when Dele told Eric he was seeing someone. This is where Eric thought it was over for good. 

But he doesn’t want to think about that, so instead of lingering on bad memories, Eric walks to the fridge and pours himself a glass of cold water. 

Dele stands quietly by the sink, waiting for Eric to look at him. There’s this heavy, suffocating silence in the room that neither of them know how to break. 

“Do you want me to leave?” Dele asks, his voice small and worried. 

Eric sets the glass of water down and looks at Dele,  _ really  _ looks at him. Dele chews the inside of his mouth and waits for Eric’s answer.

_ The burgundy jumper he only wears because I said I liked it. The aftershave he’s never changed because I said it always reminds me of him. _ The dark brown eyes that Eric loses himself in. The way the corner of his mouth curls into a smile whenever he has Eric’s attention. The way he chews his fingernails when he’s nervous. The way he tilts his head when he’s waiting to see what Eric will say next.

“I never wanted you to leave,” Eric says. His voice falters because there’s so much emotion behind it. He wants Dele to know,  _ needs _ him to know, that Eric never really wanted him to leave. Not once. 

Dele walks over to him and lifts Eric’s chin with his fingers, forcing Eric to look at him again. Dele blinks softly and searches Eric’s expression.

“Why?” Eric begins, an annoyed laugh bubbling out of him. He breaks away from Dele’s touch and puts his hands over his face, trying to calm himself. “Why are you here?” He asks from behind his hands.

“I wanted to talk to you,” Dele says, his tone laced with guilt. Eric lowers his hands and shakes his head, confused and annoyed and upset because Dele is  _ two feet  _ away from him and yet still,  _ still  _ Eric can’t have him. 

“Why? Why, Dele? Just go home. Talk to Ruby.”

“I’m not with Ruby anymore.”

Eric exhales audibly. He thought hearing Dele say it out loud would make him feel better, give him hope. But now he realises he doesn’t want hope. It’s not enough. He doesn’t want to hope that he’ll one day get to be with Dele. He just wants it,  _ right now _ . He’s tired of hoping, wishing, dreaming for it. 

“Why?” Eric stammers. “Why don’t you just be with her and stop messaging me and stop looking at me across the room and stop wearing-” 

“I can’t,” Dele says simply. He shrugs and curls his mouth into a sad smile. “I can’t make this go away. I tried, and it didn’t work. I tried to be with someone else and all I did was hurt her and hurt me.” Dele pauses, and then adds, “And hurt you.”

“Why are you doing this?” Eric asks, but the question has no real meaning to it. He says it with no conviction. He’s lost all of his energy and when Dele closes the distance between them, Eric doesn’t move away, doesn’t fight it.

“Are you listening to me?” Dele asks. Eric nods and closes his eyes. “Listen to me, Eric. I know it might never properly work, I know we’ll face a million obstacles and I know it could even potentially ruin our careers. I  _ know.  _ But I don’t care.” 

Eric has a crushing weight on his chest that’s stopping him from being able to speak, being able to move, being able to  _ breathe _ .

“Diet… Eric,  _ Eric,  _ please look at me. _ ”  _

Eric shakes his head and swallows around the heavy lump that has formed in his throat. He knows if he looks at Dele, he’ll crumble. This defence he’s being building for the past few months, the wall he’s been putting up to prevent himself from being hurt is being torn down in front of him by Dele and his nice aftershave and his stupid burgundy jumper. 

“What you said in Russia,” Eric blurts out. “What you said about me, to Harry, about being in love with me. Was it true? Were you really in love with me?”

Dele looks exasperated and for a moment Eric thinks he might cry. 

“I need to know,” Eric adds desperately. 

Dele goes to say something but his sentence gets lost before it’s even formed. He struggles for a moment, almost takes a step back, but then he stops trying to find the right words. Instead, he reaches for the hem of Eric’s shirt. 

Eric doesn’t need convincing this time, doesn’t need to be coaxed.

Dele steps into the space between them, his hands still gripping the hem of Eric’s shirt. He tugs on it once more and then lifts his head so that his mouth is aligned with Eric’s. It doesn’t matter that a light has come on outside, or that the dishwasher is beeping, or that they might damage their careers over this. 

_ It doesn’t matter,  _ Eric thinks. 

Dele kisses him softly, hesitantly, and Eric feels like he’s had the life knocked out of him. He’d almost forgotten how good this felt, like birds fluttering around inside of him, their wings beating against his chest. It feels like Russia, like long bus rides together, like a million glittering stars in the sky. 

“Dele.” 

It’s the only word Eric can muster. It’s the only word he needs. 

Dele gently breaks the kiss and folds himself against Eric’s chest, lets Eric’s hand come to rest across the back of his shoulders. 

“Eric,” Dele mumbles into Eric’s shirt. “I can’t pretend anymore.”

Eric shakes his head and buries his face into Dele’s hair, wrapping his arms tighter around Dele’s shoulders. His heart is pounding, screaming out at him. For once, his head and his heart are telling him the same thing:  _ don’t push him away. _

And he won’t. Not this time. 

“I can’t either, Del.”


	13. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that the last two chapters are told from Dele's POV!

“What you said in Russia,” Eric blurts out. “What you said about me, to Harry, about being in love with me. Was it true? Were you really in love with me?”

Dele wants to scream _yes._ He wants to grab Eric and shake him and tell him and over again that _yes, yes I was really in love with you._

_I still am!_

“I need to know,” Eric adds desperately.

Dele goes to say it, goes to tell him _yes,_ but then he stops himself before the words leave his mouth. It doesn’t seem to matter how many times Dele says it out loud. It doesn’t matter that Dele physically told Eric in Russia that he was in love with him. Eric still won’t let himself believe the words.

So Dele stops trying with words. Instead, he closes the gap between them and takes hold of the hem of Eric’s shirt, the way he did in bed that night in Russia after the Croatia match. Dele doesn’t even know why he does it - why he always wants to hold Eric’s shirt like this. It’s just comforting, a way of keeping Eric close when it feels like he might be drifting away.

Eric makes a noise low in his throat and Dele looks up at him, meets his gaze. Eric’s blue eyes that darken whenever he gets nervous, the constant slight frown that he insists isn’t intentional, the light dusting of freckles across his nose because he’s spent too much time in the sun. _Beautiful Eric,_ Dele thinks, _how can you not know I love you?_

Dele tugs the shirt one more time, hoping Eric will make the connection. He pauses for a second, tilts his head, and then presses his mouth to Eric’s. He kisses him softly, gently, and patiently. He waits until Eric has fully let his guard down, and then he lifts one hand to cup the back of Eric’s neck, carefully strokes the skin at his hairline.

When Eric quietly moans into the kiss, Dele pulls him closer and kisses him deeper.

_How can you not know?_ Dele thinks. _How can I make it any more obvious?_

Dele keeps kissing him until Eric breaks away for air.

“Dele,” Eric breathes his name into the small space between them.

Dele folds himself against Eric’s chest, still clutching the hem of Eric’s shirt. He can’t bring himself to let it go, to let Eric walk away from him. With the other hand, he trails his fingers down Eric’s spine, lets his hand come to rest on Eric’s lower back.

“I can’t pretend anymore,” Dele confesses into the shirt on Eric’s chest. Eric smells like aftershave and the nice fabric softener he uses. He smells like home.

Eric shakes his head and buries his face into Dele’s hair, wrapping his arms tighter around Dele’s shoulders. Dele clings on to him, willing Eric to stay, praying that this moment isn’t going to be snatched away from them by some outside light or Eric’s fear of the unknown.

But Eric doesn’t let go. Instead, he exhales shakily and presses a kiss to Dele’s temple, lingering there for a moment while he composes himself.

“I can’t either, Del.”

Dele stumbles back a little and looks up at Eric. He knows the words don’t resonate as well, but he wants to say them anyway, just because Eric asked for them.

“I’m in love with you,” Dele says seriously. He’s shaking with nerves but he needs Eric to know that he really means this. “I was in love with you in Russia, I was in love with you when we got back, when you went to Portugal, when I told you about Ruby. I was in love with you a month ago, a week ago, today. I never stopped being in love with you.”

“Then why Ruby?”

“Because I thought it over between us, because I was scared and lonely, because I thought it would make you jealous,” Dele says, ducking his head guiltily. He knows how that makes him come across, but he doesn’t care. He wants Eric to know the truth. “Because I’m an idiot, Eric, and I don’t know what I’m doing anymore than you do.”

Eric seems to consider this for a moment, cycling through different emotions. Dele watches him frown, and then smile, and then chew his bottom lip nervously. Dele cups the back of his neck again and waits for Eric to collect his thoughts.

Eric silently pulls Dele in for another embrace. They don’t say anything for a while, just hold on to each other in the middle of the kitchen, listening to the gentle hum of the refrigerator. It’s only at this point that Dele realises the dishwasher is beeping.

“Oh, the dishwasher…” Dele begins, mumbling into Eric’s neck. “The glasses.”

“Leave the dishwasher,” Eric replies. He lets go of Dele for just long enough to go and turn it off, and Dele can’t stop himself reaching out for him when he walks away.

Eric turns off the dishwasher, double checks the back door, and then turns out the kitchen lights.

“Let’s go to bed,” Eric says when he walks back over and laces his fingers with Dele’s in the darkness. Dele nods and leans forward to kisses him. There’s just something he really loves about kissing Eric in the dark.

When they get to Eric’s room, the first thing Dele notices is the framed photo of them both from the Euros. He walks over to the dresser and picks it up.

“You moved it,” Dele comments sadly. It used to be on Eric’s bedside table, but that was before Russia, so Dele figures Eric must have moved it as soon as they got back. He doesn’t want to let on just how much the idea of this hurts him, how Eric had to physically move it further away.

Eric walks up behind him and wraps his arms around Dele’s waist, kissing the side of his neck.

“I moved it last night, in case anyone came in here.”

Dele turns in Eric’s arms and finds Eric’s mouth with his own, fixing him with desperate, needy kisses. He restrains himself at first, but then Eric slides his hands under Dele’s shirt, finds warm skin on Dele’s back, and suddenly Dele is overcome with a fierce, somewhat panicked desperation.

Maybe because it feels like their last night in Russia, when they were running out of time and any kiss could have been the last.

_But it’s not,_ Dele reassures himself, _it’s not our last night in Russia; it’s our first night at home._

And that kiss is the first of many.

Dele clambers on top of Eric in bed and straddles his hips, grinning in the darkness because this feels so silly and wonderful and a long time coming _._

“What you smiling at?” Eric asks, laughing a little. Dele pauses for a moment, taking in how beautiful Eric looks when he laughs like this. It catches him by surprise and makes his heart hurt. _It’s been too long since I made you laugh like this,_ he thinks.

The room is bathed in darkness except for the streaks of moonlight that slip in through the blinds. One of the streaks catches the bed, catches Eric’s face and that smile that’s making Dele want to cry. For a second, the moonlight dances across Eric’s face and makes him glow.

“Just… this,” Dele answers, before leaning down and capturing another kiss. He smiles against Eric’s lips. “You.”

Eric pulls his shirt off and tosses it across the room. Dele follows Eric’s lead and does the same, even though he has no clue where this is going, or how much they’re actually going to do tonight. He wonders if they’ll touch each other again, wonders if they’ll have sex. Half of him hopes so, the other half is a little bit anxious that he might not be ready.

“Jeans,” Eric instructs, nodding at Dele’s lower half. Dele fumbles with the button and zip. He has to stand up to take them off and Eric helps him, pulling at the waistband until he can peel the jeans off and throw them to the side of the room with their shirts.

Dele stands on Eric’s bed in just his black boxers and Eric reaches for him and pulls him back down. Dele collapses on him in a heap.

“You’re not leaving my room tonight,” Eric says softly, his hands trailing up Dele’s back.

The moonlight catches him again, flicking across his eyes and nose. Dele smiles and uses his finger to trace the light on Eric’s face.  

“I’m not leaving you, ever,” Dele answers distantly. He’s lost in thoughts about Eric and the moon and how long he’s waited for this. Not just for the physical affection – the kissing and the cuddles and being back in bed together – but for Eric to actually be okay with it. For there to be no timer, no terms and conditions attached.

Eric pulls Dele flush against him and Dele nuzzles into his neck. _Warm, soft Eric, how stupid we’ve been._

They fall asleep curled around one another, fingers laced together beneath the duvet. Outside, the world falls completely silent.

Dele is clutching at consciousness, sleep pulling heavily at his body when suddenly Eric whispers his name in the darkness.

“Dele,” Eric says it again, even quieter this time.

Dele isn’t sure if he’s imagining it or not. Isn’t sure if he’s really in Eric’s bed or if this is another one of his dreams. The only thing he’s fully aware of is the warmth wrapped around him and the rise and fall of Eric’s chest against his shoulder.

“I’m in love with you too,” Eric whispers.

Dele doesn’t have the energy to respond or open his eyes, but he squeezes Eric’s hand beneath the duvet and Eric squeezes back.

\--

Dele wakes up to the sound of building work and loud drilling. He groans into the pillow and blinks himself awake, wondering why there is so much horrible, blinding light in the room.

And then he realises. This isn’t his room.

With a sleepy yawn, Dele slips out of Eric’s bed and searches for his jeans. They’re in a pile with his and Eric’s discarded shirts. In the pocket, he fishes out his phone. 10:32am.

There’s an unopened text from Harry which reads _Did you end up staying?_

Dele smiles to himself and quickly replies _yes :)_

“You need to get black out curtains,” Dele says when he walks downstairs in last night’s jeans and t-shirt and finds Eric making breakfast in the kitchen. “And what’s all the noise?”

“They’re building something across the road,” Eric says, smiling brightly. He’s fully showered and dressed in black jeans a comfy green sweater. He’s standing by the hob, making what looks like scrambled eggs and tomato.

“You should complain,” Dele says, clicking his tongue. He walks over to the refrigerator and takes out the orange juice. When he turns around, Eric is holding out a clean glass for him.

“You busy today?” Eric asks.

Dele feels his chest swell because Eric actually looks a little bit nervous about asking. He bites back a smile and shrugs nonchalantly.

“Don’t think so,” he says, turning back to the refrigerator to put the juice back in the door.

“Want to watch a movie or something then? I mean, like, here?”

“Sure,” Dele grins. “I don’t have any plans.”

They eat breakfast and talk about the party last night, about the mistletoe and how they both knew it was Harry who put it up. Eric demands to know why Dele was so late, and Dele shakes his head innocently and laughs, tells him it just took him a long time to get ready.

“I was nervous about coming over,” Dele finally admits. He’d spent hours choosing what to wear, wondering if the burgundy jumper was too much of a giveaway. Wondering if Eric would want him there. Wondering if the Christmas card he’d brought with him was too emotional.

“Oh,” Dele says, suddenly remembering. “Did you get the card?”

“What card?” Eric asks, biting into a piece of toast.

Dele jumps off his stool and goes to search the living room. He finds the card down the back of the sofa, Eric’s name printed on the front of the red envelope.

“Don’t open it yet,” Dele says when he hands it over to Eric. Eric looks at him, confused, and narrows his eyes.

“Why?”

“Just... don’t,” Dele replies. He smiles reassuringly when Eric tentatively places the card down on the kitchen counter. “It’s a Christmas card, but don’t open it yet.”

“When can I open it?”

“I’ll text you and tell you when you can open it.”

Eric keeps glancing at the card throughout breakfast. It’s the card that Dele wrote the night he broke up with Ruby, the night he confessed he was in love with someone else. Ruby had rolled her eyes, but said she knew all along, she just wished Dele hadn’t led her on and that he’d been honest from the start.

So Dele went out that night and bought a Christmas card for £2 and decided to be completely honest. He told Eric exactly how he felt, how he’d always loved Eric right from the start. He wrote about Russia, about what was going through his head, how scared he was not just for himself but for Eric, too. He wrote about what happened at the Euros, that first time they shared a bed in France and how he’d wanted to kiss Eric even then. He wrote about their friend dates, their favourite memories, the trips out in London and the endless Instagram posts about each other. He wrote about TouchRoom. _It felt like the only way I could get through to you,_ he’d written. _It was the only way to tell you I was thinking about you, always._

Dele glances at the card too. He knows he’s poured his heart into that envelope so he’s hesitant to let Eric read it in front of him.

“Can we watch Die Hard?” Dele asks, changing the subject. They’ve watched Die Hard together every Christmas since they first met, so it feels like a fitting choice. Eric laughs to himself and nods.

“Definitely we can.”

\--

They’re half way through Die Hard, lounging on the sofa together, when there’s a knock at the door. Dele is lying across the sofa with his head on a pillow in Eric’s lap, his feet kicked up onto the arm of the sofa at the other end. He’s comfortable and warm and doesn’t want to move.

“Might be a delivery,” Eric says, checking his phone. He gently nudges Dele until Dele relents and finally sits up, letting Eric get up to answer the door.

There’s another, more impatient knock. Dele rolls his eyes and settles back down on the pillow, pulling out his phone to check Instagram quickly.

Eric opens the door and Dele is only half paying attention. That is, until Dele hears a voice cry out, “Eric, my boy!”

_Jesse._

Dele sits up, alarmed.

“Came to drop off your presents, didn’t ah?” Jesse enthuses in the hallway. Dele can’t quite hear what Eric is saying, but there seems to be someone else there, too.

“Hi, Eric, what’s up?”

_Marcus._

Dele stands up and scratches the top of his head with his hand. _Is he supposed to hide?_ What if Eric invites them in and they find Dele in the living room. Will it be obvious he stayed? Maybe he can just say he came over this morning.

_But what if Eric has already told them the truth?_

Dele creeps towards the door and listens intently, trying to make out the conversation. The door to the hallway has been left slightly ajar and Dele tucks himself just behind it.

“Oh mistletoe, nice,” Jesse laughs. Dele looks up and remembers the mistletoe still in the doorway above him. Jesse is maybe two feet away from him on the other side of the door. “Who you been kissing?”

“No one,” Eric answers, a little too quickly. “Harry put it there, it’s just a joke.”

“H, man, always trying to set everyone up ain’t he?”

Someone pushes the door open and Dele has to quickly step back to stop it from hitting him in the face. He holds his breath and stands silently in the gap between the door and the sofa.

“We’re just doing the rounds,” Marcus says in the hallway. Dele tries to listen to the conversation between Marcus and Eric but he’s distracted by Jesse, who seems to be lingering suspiciously in the doorway. “Jesse wanted everyone to have a gift.”

“Oh… I… I didn’t get you anything,” Eric says guiltily.

“Nah it’s cool, it’s cool,” Jesse says, but he clicks his tongue and Dele can practically hear him pulling a face. “I guess I know who my real mates are.”

“Yeah, _me,_ the guy who drives you around all day so you can drop your merch off at everyone’s houses,” Marcus says, clearly unimpressed with how he's being forced to spend his Saturday.

“Don’t spoil the surprise, beans!” Jesse sighs dramatically. “There’s an extra one here for Del. Can you give it him when you see him, yeah?”

Dele closes his eyes and presses his mouth shut.

“Yeah, sure, will do,” Eric says quietly.

Jesse and Marcus linger for another minute but then Marcus insists that he need to get off so they can go see Harry. Jesse giddily tells Eric that he’s got Harry a JLingz diamond necklace and Dele can’t help but shake his head a little. Harry won’t wear that necklace in a million years.

“Thanks for stopping by and bringing me… this,” Eric says politely.

"No probs. Say hi to Dele for us yeah? When you see him, like." 

Eric mumbles something incoherent and Dele waits until he hears the click of the front door before stepping out from his hiding spot.

“Oh my god,” Dele says dramatically. “Why is it always Jesse?”

“I can assure you this is the first time Jesse and Marcus have ever been to my house,” Eric frowns. He places two gifts down on the coffee table and then disappears into the kitchen.

Dele looks at the gifts and laughs to himself. They’re both poorly wrapped in fake Gucci wrapping paper and neither of them have names on. There are just two JLingz tags hanging off each one.

“Did he really drop off his own merch?” Dele asks, prodding at the gifts. They’re soft inside and he doesn’t need to open it to know it’s probably a _Be Yourself_ hoodie. “He’s reached a new low, that boy.”

“He turns up at the weirdest times,” Eric calls out from the kitchen. “You want a juice, Delboy?”

“Yes, please!” Dele calls back.  _Delboy._ He's missed that.

They settle back on the sofa and Eric stretches out his arm, letting Dele snuggle up to his side.

“You’re never going to wear that, right?” Dele asks, just to be sure. He can’t for the life of him picture Eric wearing a JLingz hoodie. The thought is almost as absurd as Harry Kane in a JLingz diamond necklace.

“No,” Eric answers easily. Dele smiles up at him and for a moment he simply watches Eric watch the TV. He loves the way Eric’s concentration leaves tiny lines in his forehead, the way he narrows his eyes when he’s focused on something.

Eric leans forward and grabs a bowl from the coffee table before settling back against Dele, eyes still trained on the TV. He pulls a green grape from its vine and pops it in his mouth, completely unaware that Dele is still watching him.

“I love grapes,” Eric says with his mouth full, a slight smile curling his lips.

_I love you,_ Dele thinks silently.

\--

At 4:35pm, when Dele is picking through Eric’s fridge for more snacks, he suddenly realises that he _did_ in fact have plans today. His hand freezes over the pack of strawberries as he tries to work out who he was supposed to be meeting, and where. _Fuck._

He’s supposed to be meeting Harry for dinner at 5pm.

“I’ve got to go,” Dele says as he hurries into the living room and searches for his phone on the sofa. “I’m meeting H. I’m so sorry, I completely forgot.”

He flies around the room looking for his jumper, his jacket, his shoes.

“In the hallway,” Eric provides helpfully.

Dele looks up at him, confused, and then clicks on. _Shoes are in the hallway._

“I’m sorry, I completely forgot I’d made plans. I cancelled on him last time, I can’t do it again.” Dele explains as he heads into the hallway. He sits on the bottom of stairs, pulls his trainers on, and orders an Uber from his phone.

He’ll need to go home first, shower, and get changed. He’s going to be so, _so_ late.

Eric appears at the doorway, watching him curiously, and Dele suddenly feels a pang of guilt.

“Should I cancel?” He asks. Maybe he should cancel.

Eric laughs at him and shakes his head. “No, don’t be daft.”

“Are you sure?” Dele hesitates before pulling his second trainer on. He feels horrible just up and leaving like this, thinks maybe he should have thought this through a little more.

“I’m sure. I have to call my sister, anyway. Go and meet H.”

Dele finishes lacing up his trainers, slips on his jacket, and hugs Eric tightly in the hallway. He buries his face into Eric’s neck and gently inhales, wanting to take in the scent of Eric’s musky aftershave and the soft warmth of his skin.

“Eric…” Dele begins. He has a thousand questions he wants to ask, but he knows he doesn’t have the time right now.

And Eric knows too, because he silences him with a kiss and ushers him towards the door. “Go and meet H, we’ll talk about it later.”

“Okay,” Dele says, nodding. “We’ll talk about it later. I’ll text you.”

“Yes, now go.” Eric grins at him and Dele reaches for one more quick kiss. Eric leans into it, pulls him in with a hand on Dele's lower back, and then brings the same hand to Dele's chest and lightly pushes him towards the door. “ _Go!_ ”

\--

When he eventually reaches the restaurant and finds Harry sitting alone at a secluded table in the back, scrolling through his phone absentmindedly, Dele issues him a variety of apologies and explanations.

Harry gets up and hugs him, tells him it’s fine. He says he was expecting Dele to be late anyway. “I’ve only been here ten minutes,” Harry confesses, smiling when he sits back down.

Dele rolls his eyes and pulls a chair out at the table. They’ve got a private booth at the back, away from the main crowd. The restaurant is a steakhouse, one of Harry’s favourites, and the decor is expensive and classy.

They make small talk for a minute, chatting about Harry’s family and Dele’s battle with the traffic, but eventually Harry waves it off and gets straight down to the reason they’re meeting up for dinner.

“So?” He says, smiling knowingly.

Dele just about manages to keep a straight face. “So, what?” He asks innocently. Harry fixes him with an exasperated look.

“So what happened after I left?”

“I kissed him, H, and he kissed me back,” Dele says. He can’t stop the smile from breaking out across his face. “I stayed over.”

“Oh?” Harry says, raising his eyebrows suggestively. Dele shakes his head slightly.

“Shut up. Nothing happened. We just sort of… made out in bed and then fell asleep.”

Dele can’t actually believe he’s saying all of this out loud. Not only is he saying it out loud in a public place, but he’s saying it to _Harry Kane._ He’s telling the captain of the England team that he made out in bed with one of Harry’s teammates last night. It feels surreal to just be able to _say it_ like it isn't a big deal.

And Harry is so calm about it, too. He smirks at Dele across the table and nods slowly.

“About time.”

“I’m not sure what will happen now,” Dele says, leaning back in his chair.

“Do you think he’s in it for good now?” Harry asks.

Dele doesn’t 100% know the answer to this question, and he didn’t dare ask. He’d left Eric’s in too much of a hurry and he’s now regretting not taking the time to at least ask if he could see him tomorrow.

So Dele doesn’t know if he’ll see Eric tomorrow, or what will happen next, or if Eric is in this for good now. All he knows is that he’s now lost count of how many times he’s kissed Eric Dier, so he figures they’re at least heading in the right direction.

“I hope so,” Dele says, taking a slow, deep breath. “I’m 100% in if he is.”

“This is big, Dele. I’m happy for you.”

“Thanks, H.” Dele picks up the menu and starts looking over the options to distract himself from the butterflies in his stomach. “Are we ordering starters or what? I’m absolutely starving. All Diet ever has in is grapes.”

\--

Dele can’t believe it. He actually, physically, _cannot_ believe it.

“I hate you, Kieran Trippier,” he mutters down his mic, shaking his head. “You are a little weasel.”

Trippier has, for the _third_ time this match, stolen his kill.

“Keep up, mate,” Kieran laughs over the headset. Dele glares at the screen and holds himself back from saying anything more.

Just like any other evening, Dele is playing Fortnite with Kieran. They’re playing duos because Harry is boring and can’t play tonight, and Eric just outright refuses to play the game. Maguire said he might join them a little later on, but right now it’s just Dele and Kieran, and Dele is furious because Kieran keeps taking his loot, taking his ammo, and is now taking his kills, too.

Honestly, he doesn’t even know why he plays with this guy.

“I’m nearly dead,” Dele whines, looking at his dangerously low health bar. “You got any med kits or shields?”

“Yeah, bandages, come to me,” Kieran instructs. Dele sighs and runs to where Kieran is building a protective wall for Dele to heal up behind.

In the corner of his eye, Dele sees his phone light up on the sofa next to him. He begins to heal himself in-game while he grabs his phone and opens WhatsApp.

**Can I open the card yet?**

Dele bites back his grin and types out his reply.

_No not yet :)_

**When?**

_When I say so!! Stop being inpatient!_

“Ready?” Kieran asks. Dele glances back at his TV and applies another bandage.

**Is it a love letter?**

_Shut up diet_

**It is isn’t it**

_Maybe lol_

**“** Del, come on, let’s go. The storm’s coming in.”

_Dont open it_

**Can I open it tomorrow?**

_No_

**Then when??**

_Christmas day_

**That’s so far away**

“Dele, what are you doing?”

“Huh?” Dele suddenly registers Kieran in his ear and remembers he’s in the middle of a game. “Shit, sorry. I’m here.”

“Get in, we need to move.”

Dele jumps in the golf buggy and lets Kieran drive him across the map while he goes back to his phone.

_How do u feel about last night?_

**I feel good. How do you feel?**

_Good_

_Happy_

_I’m happy_

**Me too**

_I heard what u said last night btw, about being in love with me_

Dele waits patiently for a reply but Eric momentarily goes offline.

“What are you doing? Who are you sending dick pics too?” Kieran asks, evidently annoyed by Dele’s sudden lack of participation in the game. Dele sighs and turns back to the TV.

“Shut up, tiny man. I’m here.”

Dele sees his phone flash and can’t resist looking down to read the message.

**Good, I meant it**

It’s in this second that Dele gets sniped from across the map. Kieran groans down the mic and is promptly killed a few seconds later. Dele tries to sound apologetic, but he can’t bring himself to care. His heart is pounding in his chest and his face hurts from smiling too much.

_Me too diet. I never stopped meaning it._


	14. The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here it is, the last chapter. Thank you so so much to everyone who has followed this story. I appreciate each and every kudos, every comment, and every kind message I've had on Tumblr about this fic. I hope you've all enjoyed reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing it. <3

It’s in training that Dele struggles the most. He finds himself distracted by Eric almost every single second that he’s around. The way Eric nudges him and grins, the way he raises his eyebrows suggestively when nobody's looking, the way his hand lingers on Dele’s knee in the dressing room. It’s making Dele feel eighteen years old again.

Dele can’t help but ache for Eric’s attention. He just wants to make him laugh or smile or roll his eyes and say _Delboy_ in that scolding tone. He’s missed it more than anything.

It’s mid-December and they’re on the training pitch late one evening. It’s freezing cold and everyone is eager to wrap up the session, but Dele is having too much fun. He runs across the pitch and tackles Eric completely unnecessarily, drawing groans out of his teammates who watch as Eric tumbles to the floor with a thump and pulls Dele down with him. Eric grins up and Dele grins down, holding himself up on the palms of his hands.

He wants to duck his head and kiss Eric, right here in the middle of the training pitch, right here where they met, where they first became friends, became teammates - but he knows he can’t. Not with the whole team watching. Not yet, at least. So he picks himself up, dusts himself off, and holds out a hand for Eric.

Eric clambers to his feet and keeps hold of Dele’s hand a second longer, quietly brushes his thumb over the skin on the back of Dele’s hand. Then he breaks free and lightly shoves Dele’s chest.

“That was a clear foul,” Eric accuses, holding back a knowing smile.

Dele feigns innocence and shrugs. It _was_ a clear foul, and if he’d done that to an actual opponent it would be a straight red. But it’s Eric, and it’s training, and it’s _Eric,_ so yeah, he should expect that Dele is going to take him out every now and then.

Harry calls it a day on training and they all slowly make their way to the dressing room. Eric lingers, messing around with the ball, so Dele hangs back too. He watches Eric’s feet dance around the ball, watches him flick it up onto his toes and then his knee and back to his boot, maintaining control the entire time. Dele walks towards him, eyes on the ball. He wants to get it off him, to tease him, prove he’s the better player, but Eric has other plans. He lifts his hand to Dele’s chin and forces his gaze up to Eric’s. Dele’s breath catches in his throat when he meets Eric eyes and warm, gentle smile. He exhales softly, wondering if it’s really going to happen, if Eric is really going to kiss him on the pitch.

The ball slips through Dele’s legs easily, and then Eric is gone, collecting it on the other side, laughing joyfully to himself and at Dele.

Dele begins to protest. It’s the most unfair nutmeg he’s ever seen and there’s absolutely no _way_ Eric is having that one. No way at all.

“You deceived me!” Dele whines, now trying his hardest to get the ball from Eric, but Eric dribbles it away, still laughing, still keeping the ball _just_ out of reach.

“Keep those legs closed, Delboy,” Eric laughs. He kicks the ball into the air and catches it easily. Dele knocks into him, frowning. Eric tries to coax a smile out of him, but Dele refuses. He crosses his arms across his chest and keeps his lips tightly sealed in a thin, unimpressed line.

“You’re doing that face,” Eric laughs.

“What face?” Dele mutters. He isn’t doing a face.

“The one I said you do, in the GQ interview.”

Dele has watched that video enough times to know exactly what Eric is talking about. _He has that face he makes when you upset him, he goes like this…_

Eric pulls the face, both in the video and now, in front of him. Dele shoves him again but he can’t help the smile that breaks out across his face.

Eric slings an arm around Dele’s shoulders and squeezes him to his side as they head back towards the dressing room.

\--

A couple of days later, Dele is out on the pitch again practicing his shooting with Harry Kane, Christian, and Hugo. It’s almost 4pm and the sun has long set below the horizon. Dele is getting a little shivery despite having his full length training gear and snood on, and he has to keep pulling his sleeves down over his hands. He sort of just wants to call it a day already. Harry and Christian are practicing set pieces while Dele stands and watches. He’s supposed to be giving them feedback on their positioning, but he’s mostly just staring off into the distance and waiting until he can go inside and get warm.

That’s when two figures walk out of the training center and begin jogging towards the pitch. As they run beneath the heavy flood lights, Dele can see that it’s Eric and Sonny.

They stay together and lap the pitch while Dele, Harry, and Christian continue their set piece practice with Hugo. It’s almost impossible for Dele to stay focused though, and he misses nearly all of his shots. Harry jogs over to him and teases him, telling him he needs to perform better than that while Eric is watching. Dele shoves him and blushes, insists Eric isn’t even looking anyway.

But Eric _is_ looking. He and Sonny keep glancing over at them, especially when they’re running behind the goal. So Dele waits until they’re in view, and then he smashes the ball into the back of the net and sends Hugo diving in completely the wrong direction.

Eric slows to give him a congratulatory smile and thumbs up and then runs ahead to catch up with Sonny.

\--

Then there’s the day Dele is eating breakfast in the cafeteria with Harry Winks. Around 8:35am, Eric walks in with Jan. Dele smiles at them and nods at the two empty seats at this table, hoping they’ll come and sit with him. The cafeteria is already quite busy, so he has Winks place his training bag down on one of the empty seats to stop it being taken by somebody else.

Eric grins over at Dele and peers at his plate. Dele mouths the word “pancakes” back at him and Eric makes the most childish, delighted expression that Dele can’t help but laugh at.

But then Dele notices that Jan is already looking across to the other side of the room. He follows Jan’s gaze until he finds Christian and Mousa sitting by the window at a table with two spare seats.

Eric glances at Dele while he piles pancakes onto his plate, but he’s still mid-conversation with Jan, and then suddenly Jan is leading them both over to Christian’s table and Eric doesn’t have much choice but to go along with him.

Dele plays it off, pretends he didn’t even see them walk in anyway.

“I thought they’d sit with us,” Winks comments, sinking his spoon into his honey porridge.

“Mousa’s back in training,” Dele explains, scrolling through his phone so that he doesn’t have to look at Winks. “Jan will want to catch up with him.”

Dele’s phone buzzes in his hand and a notification comes through from WhatsApp.

**Sorry :(**

“Who’s that?” Winks asks, ever the nosy best friend. Dele looks across the room and catches Eric’s gaze. Eric makes a sad face at him and Dele laughs, rolling his eyes.

_No worries. You look nice 2 day diet :)_

**Come over tonight?**

_I was planning on it x_

Dele stuffs his phone in his pocket and smiles to himself. Winks is talking to him about his Fifa Ultimate Team and Dele is only half paying attention. He nods in the right places and laughs when Winks tells him how much money he spent buying Dele for his team, but mostly he’s just thinking about Eric and what they can do tonight.

It’s been just over two weeks since the Spurs Christmas Shindig, and in those two weeks Dele has stayed over at Eric’s five times. The first time it happened, it was supposed to just be dinner and some Fifa, but then somehow it was 11:30pm and Dele was sprawled out on the sofa half asleep, so Eric had ushered him upstairs, pulled the duvet up to their necks, and kissed him in the dark.

After that, it was just assumed Dele would stay over. Eric lives closer to training and Dele likes having the extra fifteen minutes of sleep in the morning. He also likes waking up in Eric’s bed with Eric’s arm wrapped around his middle, so there’s that, too.

“I’ve probably spent more than I should have on my squad,” Winks admits guiltily. “I bought you and Harry Kane first.”

Dele pulls himself out of his daydream and focuses on the conversation. _Winks, Fifa, Ultimate Team,_ he tells himself. _Maybe I’ll give Eric a handjob tonight._

They haven’t even really done anything aside from make out heatedly in bed. Dele routinely strips to just his boxers whenever he can, just to see if it will gain him a reaction from Eric. Usually, it’s a sideways glance and an approving hum, or Eric will raise his eyebrows and say “you hot, Delboy?” in that cheeky, Southerner accent of his.

The last time Dele stayed over, they’d both been lying in bed in just their boxers. Dele was cuddled up to Eric’s side, with Eric’s arm tucked beneath his neck, and Dele was tracing letters against Eric’s chest.

He’d remembered doing this in Russia, the night they’d shared a bed and made out until the early hours of the morning. He’d remembered tracing his name here, writing _I love you_ and _I’m sorry_ and _15,_ in between the _Dele, Dele, Dele._ He’d hoped the name would sink straight through, find itself absorbed in Eric’s heart somehow.

So he did it again. He traced his name and Eric’s name and their numbers. He’d traced _Mine_ and _Diet_ and _Kiss Me._ He didn’t even realise Eric was paying attention until suddenly Eric was coaxing his head up and planting soft kisses on his mouth.

The kissing had led to Dele crawling on top and straddling Eric’s waist. He’d been leaning down, sucking and biting the skin on Eric’s neck when he felt Eric’s dick twitch beneath him. Dele had sat upright and grinned, and Eric had laughed a little, impatiently pulling Dele back down to him.

“Are you listening to me?” Winks says suddenly. Eric’s bedroom disappears and Dele finds himself back in the cafeteria, and Winks is looking at him annoyed, shaking his head. “What are you daydreaming about?”

“Nothing, Winksy,” Dele assures him. “I’m listening to you.”

“You’re thinking about Eric, aren’t you?” Winks replies. Dele fixes him a look but doesn’t deny it.

“How much did you pay for me, for your squad?”

“Around 5,500 coins, I think.”

Dele quickly does the math in his head before glaring at Winks. “That’s like, £1 in real money?”

Winks shrugs and laughs. “79p.”

Dele glares at him harder. “And that’s what you call _spending more than you should_? It’s a good job you’re cute, Winksy.”

\--

There’s only one time in which Dele physically cannot stay away. It’s on the 23rd December, after the Everton game, when Spurs win 6-2. Everyone in the dressing room is absolutely ecstatic, coaches included, but Dele makes a beeline through the screaming crowd in search of one person and one person only.

Whenever Dele scores, Eric always kisses him on the forehead and calls him magic. It’s a tradition, something Dele looks forward to whenever he hits the back of the net.

Eric is waiting at the back of the dressing room, by Dele’s towel and clothes and trainers. He beams at Dele when Dele closes the gap between them and throws his arms around Eric’s shoulders.

“Beautiful goal, Dele,” Eric comments, biting his bottom lip as his whole face lights up. He leans forward and kisses Dele’s forehead. “Magic.”

Dele doesn’t even realise he’s got his hand up the back of Eric’s shirt, doesn’t realise he’s folding himself against Eric, burying his face into the crook of Eric’s neck and breathing him in.

Everyone is too busy celebrating to notice that Dele has just kissed the side of Eric’s neck. Nobody seems to care that Dele has both hands up Eric’s shirt, that Eric is holding on to him so tightly he might burst. Eric doesn’t even seem to care, either, that people _might_ be watching. He places another kiss on Dele’s forehead, smiling.

“Magic, Delboy.”

Dele bounces on his heels and grins. “Thanks, Diet.”

\--

The coach ride back to London takes a few hours and everyone is mostly asleep or listening to music or playing Uno.

Dele sits with Eric at the back of the coach, in one of the only rows that doesn’t have a table. Eric takes the window seat and simply watches the blur of passing street lights while Dele relaxes next to him, feet kicked up onto the seat in front, replying to a surge of text messages from his brother and his friends.

After a few minutes, Dele puts his phone away and turns to look at Eric. His eyes have slipped shut and his breathing is heavy and steady. Dele smiles and has to restrain himself from reaching out to zip up Eric’s jacket. He’s still a little pale from his flu and Dele is worried that he might be cold. He takes off his own jacket and lays it over Eric’s chest instead.

Dele watches him for a while, simply taking in the soft lines of Eric’s face, the curve of his lips, the rise and fall of his chest as he sleeps against the window. _You’re so beautiful, Eric Dier._ Dele has told him that countless times now, and Eric still doesn’t believe him, which Dele thinks is completely absurd. Eric just laughs and insists that Dele is the beauty and Eric the brains. Which, yeah, Dele can’t really argue the brains part. He just wishes Eric would realise how good looking he is, too.

“Stop staring at me, Dele,” Eric mumbles. He blinks himself awake and fidgets in his seat.

“Hey, sleepyhead,” Dele greets. He glances around to check nobody is looking and then shuffles closer, resting his head on Eric’s shoulder.

“Hey, Del.” Eric sits up a little, positioning himself better so that Dele can fit snug at his side. “How long have we been on here?”

“Like twenty minutes,” Dele laughs. “We’ve got a while to go.”

Eric hums low in his throat and pulls Dele a little closer to him.

“When do you fly to Portugal for Christmas?” Dele asks. He knows Eric is planning on going to see family in Portugal for Christmas, but he hasn’t asked too much about it because he hates thinking about the prospect for not seeing Eric for an entire week.

“Christmas Day,” Eric answers. Dele looks up at him.

“Christmas Day?” He repeats. “What time?”

“The flight is at 7pm.”

“So what are you doing Christmas morning?”

Eric shrugs. “I thought I might go see the family I have in London. I’m not sure yet.”

Dele sits up and shakes his head. “You can’t spend Christmas morning on your own.”

“Well, I didn’t want to fly any earlier than the 25th. It’s fine, Dele, really. I’ll celebrate Christmas once I get to my sister’s house.”

Dele imagines Eric waking up alone on Christmas Day morning and it makes his heart hurt. There’s just no way he’s letting that happen.

“What if I stay tomorrow night, and we do Christmas morning together?”

Eric looks at him for a few seconds before his lips curl into a curious smile. “What about your family?” He asks, hesitant.

“I’ll still go over, just, not in the morning. They’ll be fine.” Dele leans a little closer and rests his chin on Eric’s chest. He pouts and says, “You’re not spending Christmas morning on your own, Diet.”

“Okay, only if you want to, and only if your family don’t mind,” Eric says. He lifts Dele’s head up and their mouths are barely inches apart. Dele’s heart begins to hammer in his chest and he pulls back a little.

“Eric, someone could-”

“I don’t care,” Eric interrupts. He raises his eyebrows and pauses, as if waiting for Dele’s permission. Dele knows it’s possible someone might see this, but he doesn’t care either. He grins and shoots Eric a tiny, encouraging nod.

Eric tilts his head and closes the gap, capturing Dele in a warm, gentle kiss.  

It’s Lamela who calls out to them, whistling down the bus. Sonny crawls up in his seat and beams at them both, giving Dele an enthusiastic thumbs up.

“Finally!” Kyle shouts out, and Winks suddenly stands up to observe the commotion.

“Harry, you owe me £10!” Winks calls excitedly down the bus.

“Then Jesse owes me twenty!” Harry shouts back proudly.

Dele brushes off their comments and looks to Eric, waits with bated breath for the reaction, the inevitable panic, but Eric just laughs it off, rolls his eyes, and pulls Dele in for another quick peck.

“Well, if they didn’t know before, they do now,” Eric mumbles into the kiss, and then he pauses and breaks away, looking concerned. He sits up in his seat, peering down the bus. “Wait, Jesse knows?” He calls out to Harry.

Harry walks down the bus and sits down in the row next to them.

“Mate, Jesse was the first person to call it,” Harry says.

“I had a feeling he knew,” Eric groans. Dele settles against him and turns to face Harry, quietly observing their conversation while he checks Instagram. “I’m guessing he called it in Russia. The day after Croatia. He came to get me that morning and Dele was hiding in my bathroom. He was acting really suspicious.”

Harry looks at Eric a little surprised, and Dele finds himself blushing.

“Russia?” Harry repeats slowly. “No, mate, he called it in _France,_ at the Euros.”

“But that was two years ago. We weren’t even-”

“We flirted a lot in France,” Dele calmly interrupts. He hesitates, and then guiltily adds, “And I might have drunkenly told Jesse that I fancied you.”

“Oh,” Harry comments. “So he didn’t actually figure it out? You just told him?”

Dele shrugs. “I mean, I didn’t tell him anything was happening, just that I sort of fancied Eric.”

Harry shakes his head and gets up from his seat. “I’m going to message him. He’s such a little liar, he told me he’d figured it out even before _you_ figured it out.”

“Nah,” Dele laughs. “I told him the night we got went out and got drunk. He’s having you on, H.”

Harry sighs and sets off down the aisle, but halfway down he pauses and turns back to face them. “I’m really happy for you both, by the way. We all are.”

Dele smiles widely at him.

“You fancied me in France?” Eric asks quietly, lightly digging Dele in the ribs.

Dele turns to him and puts on his sweetest tone. “There’s a reason they call it the city of love.”

“Dele, France isn’t a ci-”

“Shut up, Diet.”

\--

It’s silently agreed that Dele will stay at Eric’s. Neither of them ask, but when they get back to the training ground where the coach drops them off, they both walk over to Eric’s car and Dele hangs by the passenger door, waiting for Eric to open it for him.

“This door won’t open itself, Eric,” Dele comments, his tone a little scolding. Eric rolls his eyes and climbs into the driver’s side.

“You don’t get those privileges anymore, Dele.”

Dele pouts when he lets himself into Eric's car and closes the door behind him. “Why not?”

“Well, that’s when I was trying to woo you, wasn’t it?” Eric says half seriously. He starts up the engine and Dele laughs loudly at him, because really, _woo?_ Where did Eric even learn that word?

“Oh, so you’re not trying to _woo_ me anymore?” Dele grins.

Eric pulls the car out of its parking space and glances across at Dele. He pauses for a moment and then winks. “Maybe a little.”

Dele feels the butterflies again, the ones that flutter in his stomach and cause him to mess up his words and spill things down himself whenever Eric looks at him like _that._ He’s wanted to ask Eric about this for a few days, wants to ask the dreaded question, but he just hasn’t found the right moment.

Now that they’re driving through the empty streets of Tottenham, just the two of them with the radio playing quietly, Dele thinks this might be the right time. The question burns up inside of him, and he desperately tries to think of a better way of phrasing it, but then it spills out of him before he can stop it.

“What are we?”

Eric looks back across at him, a crease lining his forehead as he considers Dele’s question.

“What do you mean?” Eric asks. Dele stares at him. _Really?_ He thinks. _You’re going to pretend you don’t know what I mean?_

“Like… what are we?” Dele says again. It’s just as unhelpful as the first time, but he’s pretty certain Eric knows _exactly_ what he’s asking. “Are we dating?” He blurts out. “Or, like... exclusive? Or not?”

Eric presses his mouth into an amused smile and Dele looks at him seriously, waiting for his answer.

“What do you want us to be?”

“Well I wouldn’t want you to do this with anyone else,” Dele answers quickly. “I don’t want you to kiss anyone else.”

“I don’t want you to kiss anyone else, either.”

“And I know we have to keep it on the down low, but I wouldn’t want it to be a secret forever.”

“The team already know,” Eric points out.

“What about your family and your friends? Would you ever tell them?”

“My friends knows. I already told them. I think my sister knows, too.” Eric continues, concentrating the road ahead, turning left and then right until they’re on a country road.

Dele watches him, studying his face as the light from passing street lamps sweeps over him, highlighting his features.

“You told your friends?” Dele asks, smiling.

“Yeah,” Eric laughs a little. There’s a nervous, self-deprecating edge to it. “I was drunk, and sad.”

Dele watches Eric’s expression change. He’s clearly thinking back to his trip to Portugal, the one he took when Dele was dating Ruby. It was one of the worst weeks of Dele’s life. He worried Eric might never come back.

“I’m sorry I made you sad,” Dele says quietly. “I never wanted that.”

Eric places his hand on Dele’s thigh and smiles softly at him. “I know. It wasn’t you making me sad, it was just, the whole situation. It was good I told them, anyway, they gave me some good advice.”

“What did they say?”

“They said I had to stop beating myself up about not knowing what I wanted. That it was fine to not know. They said I should stop caring so much what other people would say and think, too. Issie said I’m always held back by my fear of letting people down.”

“She’s right,” Dele comments.

“I know. She’s a much smarter person than I am.”

“I’m glad you told your friends,” Dele says, and he means it. He knows Issie is right, knows Eric cares too much what other people think of him. He used to scroll through his Instagram comments, frowning at the messages from people telling him he was overrated or that he’d played poorly. Dele had started leaving nice comments on his posts to balance it out, but he knew Eric was taking it all to heart.

“Have you told anyone?” Eric asks. He turns down another country road.

“Harry, and my brother. I'd sort of hinted at it to Winks, too. Jesse knows because of that night in France.”

“What did your brother say?”

“Same as Harry, really. That I should go after what I want, tell you how I feel.”

“Have you thought about what could happen if this goes public?”

Dele shrugs. “I try not to. I hope it wouldn’t be too big of a deal.” He’s _definitely_ thought about it. He thinks about it because he’s pretty sure it’s one of Eric’s biggest worries. What the public will say, what Poch will say, what the media will say. “It’s funny though,” Dele continues. “There are loads of articles about us already, about like our _bromance_ , and none of the articles are bad. It’s always seen as a good thing.”

“Remember when Chris said everyone knows it’s more than a bromance?” Eric chuckles. “I can’t believe that didn’t make the media.”

“Maybe because people don’t care as much as you think they do,” Dele suggests. He waits for Eric to look at him before adding, “Maybe even if it does go public that we’re dating, they still won’t care.”

Eric nods, a grin spreading across his face. He opens his mouth to say something but restrains himself.

“What?” Dele prompts.

“So we’re dating, then?” Eric asks, clearly amused. Dele stays silent and simply relishes in how happy Eric looks in this moment. “You just said ‘even if it goes public that we’re dating’.”

“Did I?”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t realise,” Dele says coyly, even though he _definitely_ realised and fully intended to say it.

“I guess that answers your question then,” Eric says after a few moments of silence. Dele tilts his head and smiles affectionately at him. Eric smiles back, raising his eyebrows in rapid succession to draw a laugh out of Dele.

“I love you, Eric Dier.”

\--

On Christmas Eve, Dele takes an overnight bag with him to Eric’s. So far he’s mostly just been living off Eric’s spare toothbrush and the guest towels and Eric’s jumpers when he really has nothing else to wear, but honestly they look ridiculous on him and he misses his aftershave and his comfy pyjamas so he finally gets around to packing a bag.

When he turns up at Eric’s doorstep, Eric opens the door and greets him in a navy Spurs Christmas jumper. There’s a creepy snowman on it and it says ‘Spurs’ in big white writing. Dele pulls a face at it before he’s even said hello.

“Why are you wearing that?” He asks dryly as he steps into Eric’s hallway and kicks off his trainers. He drops his bag on the floor and hugs Eric gingerly, still glaring at the offensive item of clothing. Eric is smiling like an idiot and Dele wants him to just take it off immediately. “You’re so lame, Diet.”

“We all got one. Yours in the living room,” Eric replies. “And it’s Christmas Eve!”

“I’d rather wear one of Jesse’s hoodies, and that’s saying something,” Dele sighs. He’s not the judgemental type but the Spurs Christmas jumpers are the lamest thing he’s ever seen and Eric is still somehow wearing one two sizes too big and fine, maybe he’s a _little_ bit judgemental when it comes to Eric’s clothing.

“Well, there’s one of those here for you, too,” Eric adds. “So either is fine.”

Dele rolls his eyes but leans up to kiss him regardless. Eric actually looks kinda cute in the jumper, but there’s no way Dele is ever going to tell him that.

“Take this off,” Dele whines, tugging on the hem of the jumper. He smiles to himself when he realises what he’s doing. _Just like Russia,_ he thinks.

“It stays on until after dinner,” Eric insists.

Dele heads upstairs to use the bathroom while Eric starts dinner. He takes his overnight bag and while he’s up there, he fetches the toothbrush and places it in the holder beside Eric’s. He doesn’t think anything of it until he turns back to the sink and sees them both there together, and that’s when his heart leaps into his throat. _It’s just a toothbrush,_ he tells himself. But it’s a new toothbrush, one he specifically bought to bring here, to _leave_ here.

“This is really happening,” Dele mutters to himself. He touches the tip of Eric’s toothbrush and then his own. He can’t stop himself knocking it over so that they fall against each other.

\--

“Hey,” Dele calls out from the doorway of Eric’s living room, some time around 8pm. He looks up and laughs. “This mistletoe is still up, you know.”

Eric walks out of the kitchen in his navy Nike shirt and grey joggers, carrying two mugs of hot tea. “I know,” he replies, heading towards Dele and the living room.

Dele steps aside to let him through, but Eric pauses in the doorway and smiles, raising his eyebrows suggestively.

Dele suddenly realises what is happening and grins. He leans in and kisses Eric, making sure not to knock the tea out of his hands.

They settle on the sofa together and watch The Snowman because Eric can’t believe Dele has never seen it. Dele finds the whole thing a bit weird. A snowman coming to life and stealing a kid from his home, leading him into a dark forest so that he can have a party with other creepy snowmen? _Definitely weird._ But Eric seems to enjoy it, so Dele keeps his mouth shut and drinks his tea because, well, it’s Christmas Eve and he figures on this _one_ night he can let Eric choose the movie.

When it’s over, Eric calls his sister and they start babbling to each other in Portuguese. Dele watches Eric pace around the room and tries to work out what they’re talking about, but after a few minutes he realises he doesn’t have the faintest clue and gives up. He gestures to Eric that he’s going upstairs and Eric quickly nods at him, smiling.

Dele wanders into Eric’s room and stares out of the window for a while. He looks up at the few stars that dot the London sky and wishes they were back in Russia, where millions upon millions of stars lit up every night above their hotel.

He thinks about the night they beat Sweden, when Dele had scored, and how his first thought when he’d hit the back of the net had been about Eric calling him _magic._

He thinks about Colombia and how violent the game had been, how scary it was to play such a high-energy match against a team that wouldn’t back down. An excruciating 90 minutes followed by a further 30 and then finally, the penalty shootout. Dele could barely bring himself to watch. His jaw had ached watching Eric step up to take the last penalty, and he knew this moment was make or break.

When he scored, Dele had felt the life knocked out of him. Joy and love and admiration had rushed through his entire body all at once, leaving him feeling winded. His hamstring was injured and he was completely exhausted, but that hadn’t stopped him sprinting across the pitch to reach Eric, to throw himself into Eric’s arms.

Dele smiles to himself and draws Eric’s name in the condensation on the window. _Best summer of my life._

After a few more minutes of people watching, he turns back to the room and starts idly picking through Eric’s belongings. He picks up the photo of him and Eric heading to the Euros and feels his heart swell at the memory. He picks up Eric’s discarded jumper on the floor and tries it on. It’s about four sizes too big, even for Eric, but it smells nice and Dele balls the sleeves up around his hands and sniffs them.

Still buried in Eric’s jumper, Dele walks over to the wardrobe and begins flitting through the rest of Eric’s ridiculous and oversized clothing. At the bottom of the wardrobe he finds three wrapped gifts all labelled to Dele, and he can’t stop himself picking them up and shaking them, trying to work out what might be inside.

One of them is soft and light, so he figures it might be a hoodie or some item of clothing. The second one is big, with a frame, so he thinks maybe a poster or artwork. The third gift is in a small box, just big enough to sit in his hand. He shakes it, and something inside rattles, but he worries he might break it so he sets it back down in the bottom of the wardrobe and puts everything back as he found it.

His own gifts for Eric are still in the boot of his car, but he plans to get them and put them under the tree just before they go to bed. He’s also brought three gifts: a commissioned, original painting from one of Eric’s favourite artists, a map of the stars the night they first kissed in Russia, and a new framed photo of them both at the World Cup, to go alongside the Euros one Eric loves so much.

They’d both agreed no more than three gifts each, and nothing too expensive. Dele had rolled his eyes, mostly because he was planning on buying Eric a sports car, but reluctantly he agreed to the terms.

Dele pads over to the top of the staircase and listens for a moment. Eric is still on the phone, talking away in Portuguese. He wonders why they don't just talk English like they usually do.  _They're talking about me,_ he thinks smugly to himself. 

Dele walks back into the bedroom and sits down on Eric’s side of the bed.

It’s in Eric’s bedside table that he finally finds it: the Christmas card. The one Dele wrote the night he broke up with Ruby, the one that tells Eric everything, starting right back from when they first met. It’s the letter that explains what happened at the Euros, what happened in Russia, and what happened when they got home.

Eric still hasn’t read it yet, because Dele has instructed him to wait until Christmas Day. The idea was that Dele wouldn’t have to be there when Eric reads it, but now that he’s staying over anyway, he figures there’s no point waiting anymore.

He takes the sealed card from the drawers and heads back downstairs.

“Hey,” Eric greets warmly. He’s just hung up the phone and is standing by his TV, looking curiously at the card in Dele’s hands.

“You might as well open this now. It was supposed to be for tomorrow, but I think you can open it now.”

Eric walks over to him and Dele hands him the card, hoping Eric can’t hear just how unsteady his breathing is right now. _It might be too much_ , he thinks. _Eric gets scared when it gets too much._

“Are you sure?” Eric asks. Dele nods nervously and takes a deep breath.

Before Dele can change his mind, Eric is peeling open the envelope and sliding the card out. He opens it and begins to scan the message inside.

It’s like time has come to a complete still. Dele can feel the weight in every single second, the pounding of his heart and the nervous twitch in his stomach. A second passes, and then another, and another, until eventually Eric reaches the end of the message. Dele swallows the lump in his throat and waits for a reaction.

Eric’s face scrunches up into a frown, and Dele feels his heart sink. _It’s too much,_ he thinks, _he’s going to push me away._

Eric continues frowning at the card, his forehead creasing the way it does when he’s thinking too much, but when he looks at Dele, his expression softens. He pulls Dele in by his middle and hugs him tightly.

“I love you,” He mumbles into Dele’s neck. Dele pulls away and a small, relieved laugh escapes him.

“I love you, too. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. Right from the start.”

“We’ve been stupid, haven’t we?” Eric asks, scratching the back of his neck. Dele nods. _We’ve been so stupid._ So much hurt and anger and misplaced tension. So many nights Dele has buried his tears into his pillow because he didn’t know what he wanted or how to get it or how to tell anyone. Because he didn’t know if Eric would ever feel the same way.

He steps forward and takes hold of the hem of Eric’s shirt. He tugs it, and in return he gets one of Eric’s most beautiful smiles. “You remember this?” He asks quietly. Eric nods and brings his forehead to rest against Dele’s.

“Dele, I remember everything.”

\--

Christmas morning starts at 7am sharp, when Dele’s alarm goes off. It’s the only day of the year he can actually wake up at 7am and not feel like a complete zombie.

He blinks himself awake, reaching sleepily for his phone to turn off the alarm, and then instantly throws himself on top of Eric.

Eric groans and tries to shove him off, but Dele holds tight, smothering his face in kisses until Eric agrees to get up.

“It’s Christmas, Diet!” Dele enthuses, straddling his waist. “Santa’s been!”

“You’re actually ten years old,” Eric sighs, but Dele can see the corners of his mouth lifting into an amused smile nonetheless. He pulls Dele down into a lazy kiss. “Merry Christmas, Dele.”

They both head downstairs and Eric makes them both tea while Dele flicks through the music channels on TV, looking for one playing Christmas music. _All I Want for Christmas Is You_ chimes throughout the living room and Dele sings along dramatically, pointing to Eric when Eric walks back into the room.

“Are you like this when you're at your parents' house?” Eric asks with a laugh. He sets a mug of tea down for Dele on the coffee table and then sits on the floor with him.

Dele grins excitedly and leans in for a kiss. “Can I open my presents now?” He asks.

Eric nods and leans back on his hands with his legs stretched out in front of him. He watches as Dele reaches under the tree and pulls out the first gift with his name on it. It’s the soft, lightweight one, the one Dele has guessed is a hoodie.

He tears at the paper until it falls away to reveal a large, rather expensive-looking bath towel. Eric smiles fondly at him and explains that he wanted to get Dele his own towel to keep at Eric’s house, so that he doesn’t have to keep using Eric’s or the cheap guest towels.

Dele feels a lump growing in his throat and he has to tell himself he will look absolutely ridiculous if he cries over a _towel._ It’s the same feeling he got when he looked at his toothbrush next to Eric’s. The feeling of being home.

Eric opens two of his own gifts next. The star map and the commissioned print. He gushes over both of them, telling Dele how much he loves them and how thoughtful they are. He can’t stop staring at the star map, tracing the date at the bottom. Dele hasn’t even told him why he picked that date, but he doesn’t need to. He can tell Eric has already worked it out.

Dele’s second gift is a framed shirt. It’s his own from the Sweden game, the one he scored his World Cup goal in. Eric has got every member of the team to sign it, and right over the heart, just below the three lions emblem, Eric has scribbled the word _magic._

Dele just about manages to hold himself together. He croaks out an emotional ‘thank you’ and Eric gives him a moment to compose himself.

“Open this, it’s just a little gift,” Dele says quietly, handing over Eric’s last present.

He watches Eric unwrap the framed photo, watches as Eric’s face lights up. _You’re so beautiful when you smile like that, like the sun is bursting out of you._

“It’s us,” Eric says happily. Dele laughs at him and nods.

“It’s us. To go with the one you’ve got from the Euros.”

“I love it,” Eric comments. He’s still grinning. “Thank you.”

Dele opens his last gift while Eric watches him. He looks a little nervous, which makes Dele nervous, too. He fixes Eric with a suspicious look when he tears off the paper to reveal a black leather box.

“What is it?” Dele asks. The butterflies have settled in his stomach again because Eric is smiling and telling him to open it and find out.

He does, and inside is a pair of silver cuff links. They’re small, delicate, and each one has the number 20 subtly etched into the corner. Dele picks them up and holds them in his hand. He loves them.

“For my sister’s wedding,” Eric says softly.

Dele looks up to meet his gaze. “Your sister’s wedding?” He asks, confused.

“I want you to be my plus one,” Eric explains. “If you’ll be my date?”

Dele doesn’t really have the words to explain how he feels. Doesn’t have the words to tell Eric how much this means to him, how much _Eric_ means to him, and all of this. The cuff links, the signed shirt, the towel. Everything. The whole year, in fact.

Instead of stumbling with words that could never explain just how in love he is right now, Dele simply nods. He looks at Eric, _beautiful Eric,_ and watches his face light up again. _You’re sunshine,_ he thinks, _and in this world of ours, that’s all I could ever need._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prequel and sequel coming soon.


End file.
